


if it were me (things would be different)

by melodyinlove



Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: M/M, Minor Kang Daniel/Ong Seongwoo, i actually dont know what the proper tag is for this concept someone help me out, other minor nuest/w1 ships but we'll see how things go, paralleluniverse!au, slight!timetravel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-08 17:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12869304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodyinlove/pseuds/melodyinlove
Summary: jonghyun's heart can't handle how minhyun has distanced himself from nu'est and he swears to himself that if he was in top 11, he would never do what minhyun has done to them.





	1. where you at

**Author's Note:**

> the timeframe this fic starts in is beautiful era just to be clear.

_“9th place, Pledis Hwang Minhyun”_

 

BoA’s voice rings in Jonghyun’s ears every single day, haunting him as if the obvious absence of Minhyun’s presence isn’t enough for his heart to handle. His best friend is no longer right next to him throughout all his hardship and it hurts. He’s cried a lot of tears at this point that he feels like he can’t cry anymore. Jonghyun knows he’s not the only one going through pain. He knows that the other members miss Minhyun as well, but he can’t control himself. He can’t just suddenly feel okay out of nowhere.

 

_“14th place, Pledis Kim Jonghyun”_

 

He thinks about Minhyun constantly. He wonders if he’s eating well, sleeping well, and emotionally well. It was harder when Minhyun didn’t have his phone, but now he can message them from time to time. However, Minhyun is the type to tell them that he’s doing well even when he isn’t and all of NU’EST knows that. Other than Jonghyun, the other members think about Minhyun just as much which is why they watch every single TV show that has Minhyun on it. They want to make sure that Minhyun looks healthy and happy. They know what a real smile and a fake smile looks like and they know when Minhyun is stressed when he loses his cheek fat. It warms their heart seeing Minhyun do well.

But Jonghyun can’t bare to watch it anymore.

 

_“13th place, Pledis Kang Dongho”_

 

Jonghyun grabs soju out of the fridge as the other three members watch the newest episode of Wanna One Go. He vaguely hears that Minhyun is doing zumba with Sungwoon and Guanlin and gets a bit interested, but Jonghyun knows that if he watches he’ll end up bawling when it’s supposed to be more happy than anything.

The three glance over at Jonghyun at the sound of the refrigerator door closing, but don’t say a word as they know it’s useless to say anything or invite Jonghyun to join them at this point. They never bother to ask him why he doesn’t watch as they assume at this point it’s just not his thing.

The leader enters his room and pours himself a shot, sending it down his throat as soon as it’s full, the familiar warmness hitting him as soon as he swallows. He can’t bring himself to even smile as the thought of Minhyun being somewhere that’s not with NU’EST hurts, and despite not watching the show, he still feels upset.

He pours and takes another shot quickly, soon moving the shot glass away and drinking straight from the bottle. Jonghyun isn’t the type to drink often as he knows it is more healthy for him to talk out his emotions with his friends than keep them bottled in and drink, but he feels like bringing up Minhyun is a sensitive topic and he doesn’t want to bring down the mood in the team more than it needs to be.

If he’s honest, part of him is sad that Minhyun isn’t with him, but most of him is frustrated that Minhyun has become so distant with them that the only way they can really see how he’s doing is through TV shows, and they know just as well that what is seen on media isn’t always the truth. It’s isn’t like Minhyun didn’t speak only during Wanna One promotions, but it’s been hardly any words throughout his break time and promotions.

It makes Jonghyun so frustrated that he tilts his head and finishes his first bottle of soju. He’s usually not so fast with his liquor, but he doesn’t know why he’s getting so emotional when these thoughts have been with him as soon as Minhyun got his phone back.

 

“Minhyun-ah, how have you been? I feel like I haven’t heard your voice in forever,” Jonghyun smiles as he’s glad that he didn’t hear the call go to voicemail.

“I’ve been just fine,” Minhyun coldly replies.

 _Is there something wrong? Or maybe I’m just imagining things,_ “Ahh, really? What’s been going on? How is everyone?”

“We’ve just been filming stuff, that’s all.”

 _Why does he sound so unenthusiastic? Why is he not telling me anything else?_ “For what? That’s co--”

“Listen, Jonghyun. I have to go. Maybe we can talk later.”

 _Already? We just started talking!_ “O-Oh, okay. That’s fine. I lo--”

But before Jonghyun could even finish his words, Minhyun is already gone.

 

For the past couple weeks, every time Jonghyun tried calling or messaging Minhyun, he hardly received anything back from him. Sometimes, it wasn’t even words that Minhyun replied with, but some random KakaoTalk sticker that hardly ever related to what Jonghyun said previously.

Even during the few times Wanna One and NU’EST W had performances together, Minhyun tried his best to stay away from the members and not say a word to them. No visits in their waiting room and whenever they tried to visit Wanna One’s waiting room, Minhyun was never there.

Jonghyun couldn’t help but feel abandoned.

 

He tries calling Minhyun once, twice, but there's no response. Then, he looks through his chat with Minhyun and laughs to himself as he sees how many times he’s tried to contact Minhyun with no reply. It is the same even in the NU’EST chat, but at least in that chat there is four other members talking so it looks lively. However, between Jonghyun and Minhyun, it looks absolutely pathetic.

“Maybe he doesn’t love me anymore,” Jonghyun whispers to himself before finishing his second bottle of soju.

By now, the alcohol has already hit him, but he doesn’t want to stop until he can’t feel his emotions anymore. He doesn’t want to be mad at Minhyun. He wants to think that somewhere deep down there, Minhyun has some good reason to why he’s being so distant but he can’t think of a single one.

The others may brush it past them, but Jonghyun just can’t. He feels like his mind is just running in circles, trying to understand and not be mad, but the more he thinks about it, the more mad he gets.

“I just want updates on how he’s genuinely doing! Is that so hard?” the leader hisses, not realizing he’s speaking and not thinking to himself as usual, “It’s not like I’m asking him to send me nudes or anything scandalous! What’s so hard with sending a message back? Or taking 10 minutes out of your day to call someone you have said is the love of your life!?”

Jonghyun can feel the tears falling down his face once again. He breathes deeply in and out as he tries to calm down, but there’s no stopping him at this rate. On an impulse decision, he grabs one of the empty soju bottles and throws it onto the ground, making a huge shattering noise.

“What’s going on?” Dongho opens the door, wide eyed at the mess Jonghyun has created, “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Minhyun hates me,” Jonghyun whispers as he curls up into a ball, “How can he just abandon me like this? I don’t understand.”

Dongho steps over the broken glass and puts his arm around Jonghyun, “JR-ah, it’s okay. He doesn’t hate y--”

“Yes he does!” the drunkard exclaims as he jumps up, “Why don’t you leave me alone and continue watching TV show of that t-t-t-traitor!”

“Jonghyun-ah, calm down,” Dongho gets back up and rubs the other’s back, “the show ended a while ago. He’s not a traitor. He’s still a NU’EST member and he still loves you.”

“He. Doesn’t. Love. Me,” Jonghyun hisses as the tears still fall down his face, “Maybe I should’ve just been in Wanna One! If I was the one who made it in top 11, I would’ve never just left the people I’ve spent years in hardship with in radio silence! It makes no sense!”

“Don’t say these things. He has his reasons and we got to respect that. We don’t know what he’s going through right now,” Dongho guides the other to lay on his bed.

“Then he should tell us! We’ve been there throughout everything! Why not now!? Maybe being in Wanna One changed him, I know it wouldn’t have changed me if I was the one who made it. You guys mean too much to me to just forget like he did,” Jonghyun quickly sits up on his bed again, “You know, I had to lie to fans saying I’ll ask Minhyun where ‘Jju-yah’ came from, but how the fuck can I ask him when he doesn’t even fucking reply?”

Dongho steps back a bit, flustered as Jonghyun hardly ever curses, “You’ve had too much to drink. Just drink some water and everything will be okay in the morning. I promise you.”

Jonghyun scoffs, “You say that every single time and it’s never okay in the morning. The world doesn’t just suddenly change overnight. Everything fucking sucks and it--”

“Well, you know what Jonghyun, we’re suffering too! Maybe not as much as you, but we still feel hurt!” Dongho bursts out, “You only say what you feel about this when you’re drunk. You don’t even rely on us at all. I’m fucking done. Go to bed, Jonghyun. Or not, whatever. I don’t care.”

The main vocal quickly leaves the room and slams it shut, the echo of the door still ringing in Jonghyun’s ear as he slowly falls asleep as he’s not only physically, but emotionally tired.

  
  
  


“Jonghyun hyung, wake up!”

The leader slowly opens his eyes, his body facing the wall. He’s too tired to move, but he looks at the blue blankets covering him in confusion as he swears that his blankets were black last time he checked. The clean white walls also are different to him as he is sure that he’s left so many dents and stains  on the walls of his room.

“Hyung! Come on! Get up!”

_Wait, was I just called hyung? No one calls me hyung in NU’EST._

Jonghyun finally moves his body and turns himself around, surprised that he’s actually on a bunk bed, but more amazed at the face in front of him.

“Kim Jaehwan, what are you doing here?” Jonghyun asks as he backs closer to the wall.

Jaehwan tilts his head in confusion, “What are you talking about? I’m here to wake you up. We have a schedule in a couple hours and we have to get to the salon as soon as possible according to manager hyung.”

“Wait, WE have a schedule in a couple hours? Like, the two of us?!”

“Hyung, all eleven of us have a schedule in a couple hours. Did you forget?” Jaehwan shrugs, “You’re acting strange. Well, anyway. I’m gonna try to make some breakfast. Get up soon. I think the shower is open.”

Jaehwan walks out of the room and Jonghyun quickly gets out of bed. Everyone else seems to be gone, but he vaguely remembers who sleeps where if this really is where he thinks he is. He finds a mirror on a bed, who he thinks is Jihoon’s, and looks at himself.

_This is me for sure. Kim Jonghyun._

Jonghyun sighs before quickly getting dressed as the bathroom was not open like Jaehwan had said. It honestly takes him a while to even find the closet in the unfamiliar bedroom. Honestly,he isn’t sure if the clothes he puts on are his, but he walks out of the bedroom as soon as he can to not waste any time, and sees ten other handsome men in the living room.

_Kang Daniel, Park Jihoon, Lee Daehwi, Kim Jaehwan, Ong Seongwoo, Park Woojin, Yoo Seonho (for some reason?) Yoon Jisung, Bae Jinyoung, and Ha Sungwoon. But where is Minhyun?_

“Leader! You were supposed to get everyone assembled 15 minutes ago,” hissed the manager, getting Jonghyun’s attention before he could ponder about Minhyun’s absence anymore.

Jonghyun quickly looks over toward Jisung, as he knows for a fact that he is leader of Wanna One, but everyone seems to be staring at him instead. He doesn’t think of anything of it and just assumes it is because he was the last one to get ready. With everyone joking around a few moments ago, he figures they were ready a while before he even got out of bed.

“I’m sorry,” Jonghyun bows, “It won’t happen again.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

The crowd begins to walk out of the door and follow the manager, but Jonghyun hastily walks around and lifts up the pillows, also looking through the closest cabinets but not being able to find what he’s been searching for.

“Wait, have you guys seen my phone? I can’t find it,” Jonghyun sighs as it is nowhere in sight. He wanted to ask one of the NU’EST members or even their manager what was going right now as he’s too shy to ask Wanna One at the risk of sounding stupid.

“Ha, nice joke, hyung! We got out phones taken away yesterday when we moved in. Don’t you remember?” Daniel laughs as he pats Jonghyun on the back.

The confused boy stops in his tracks and laughs it off, not wanting to question it any further, “Haha, you got me there. Let's go.”

Jonghyun lets everyone walk in front of him as he continues wondering to himself why he apparently moved into Wanna One’s dorm last night and got his phone taken away too. Minhyun also is also nowhere in sight, but Minhyun was never around when NU’EST even came to visit Wanna One’s waiting rooms, so he’s sure that there’s no issue there. The whole concept itself though made no sense. Did he drink that much last night that he can’t remember anything that happened?

“Leader! You’re taking shotgun!” the manager yells as the passenger door is wide open.

He stands there, dumbfounded as he looks to see ten members sitting in the seats in the back, all smiling at him like there is nothing wrong in the world. Jonghyun looks back at the manager and slowly climbs into shotgun. As the car drives, he stares blankly ahead of him as it has finally hit him.

_I, Kim Jonghyun, am Wanna One’s leader._

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have so many fics that i should be writing instead, but here i am,,,, writing another one. i feel like this gives soft 2hyun time travel fic vibes, but i swear i'm not trying to copy or anything like that so here's my credits to the fic just in case.  
> also, i'm writing in present tense for the first time for a fic so i hope it doesn't sound rly awkward if i rly cant handle it, i'm changing everything to past tense LOL this chapter was read over by someone else, but not rly edited so pls excuse any grammar mistakes!


	2. emotion

After a long day of practice, Jonghyun lays on his bed and stares at the bottom of the top bunk after taking a long cold shower (which, for the matter, wasn’t that hard to fight for considering he went after Jaehwan’s two second shower). He can hear the younger members going wild and running around the dorm. Specifically, he can hear Jihoon yelling at Woojin about something trivial. If things are how he remembers, Jihoon has a huge crush on Woojin and can only express anything but romantic emotions, but that isn’t his problem to deal with. Usually, he loves playing cupid and setting people up, but he has bigger things on his mind at the moment.

 

“You guys will be learning the choreography for two songs you heard yesterday and the fans will decide which one will be the title track for your debut album,” the choreographer announced with joy. Everyone around Jonghyun was hyped and yelled, but Jonghyun stayed silent, leaving only a soft smile on his face that was nowhere near genuine.

They started learning the choreography for Burn It Up first and Jonghyun had to hide the fact that he knew it already. Before, he tried to stay away from anything related to Wanna One, but the choreography for their songs seemed too fun that he couldn’t resist learning them on his own.

“Wow, Jonghyun hyung. I’ve never seen you learn a dance this quickly before,” Woojin grinned as he tossed the leader a water bottle during their break, “Not saying you’re bad or anything! You usually get it down fast, but it was different this time. It’s like you didn’t even need to be taught that I wanted to help from you.”

“Ah, thanks. I guess I’m having a good learning day,” Jonghyun chugged the water, his sweat pouring down his face. He mentally hissed at himself for not hiding his knowledge of the choreography well enough, “But you did well too, as usual.”

“Aww hyung, I’m blushing,” Woojin joked with a soft smile, “But I’m glad you’re okay. You know, we were all worried about you because of the finale results.”

Jonghyun’s attention on Woojin got a little bit sharper, hoping he would speak more about what happened on the day where Minhyun was supposed to be in the top 11. However, the leader could see the hesitation to speak more in the younger’s face, who then decided not to say anything else. He simply smiled at the leader before running off and slapping Daehwi’s butt (who was quick to protest “Ah, hyung I told you to not do that!”)

 

Jonghyun is sure of his situation now. Somehow, he entered an alternate dimension where he was announced to be in Wanna One, just as everyone expected. He basically has switched spots with Minhyun and started from the beginning of the team’s journey. It makes him feel like he’s crazy just thinking about it, but there is no other plausible reasoning. At first, he thought it was a dream. He tried pinching himself several times, even asking Seongwoo to slap him (which he regretted), but nothing worked. Then, he assumed it was a big prank, but Jaehwan is a horrible bluff, so there was no way it could’ve lasted so long. That leads him to now, where he is still here as Wanna One’s leader and not as NU’EST’s leader.

“Jonghyun hyung, you can’t just be in here by yourself! Let's play a video game together!”

The voice catches him by surprise as he was sure that everyone was just having fun in the living room amongst themselves. He told all of them earlier that he was too tired to do anything and was going to sleep early. Jonghyun stays quiet as he isn’t in the mood to play games (which is quite surprising knowing himself), hoping the younger would assume he is asleep. “Come on, hyung. Don’t be like this! I know you’re awake. Play with meeeee,” the younger exasperates before quickly climbing onto the bed and tickling the elder.

Jonghyun tries his best to resist and contain his laughs, but he can’t help himself and bursts out, “A-a-alright, Daniel! I’ll play ONE game with you. P-please stop!” Daniel thankfully stops as asked. Jonghyun turns around and sees Daniel staring at him with his signature bright bunny smile. “I’ll just yell at Seongwoo to hurry up and finish his revenge match with Jisung that we all know he’s going to lose.” Daniel quickly hops off of Jonghyun’s bed and runs out of the room. Jonghyun can’t help but smile and think to himself, “You’re going to be even a bigger star once you debut. You’ll shine the brightest and I hope you know that.”

Jonghyun can hear Daniel yelling at him to come out and play as well a faint Seongwoo crying about losing and wanting another rematch. He quickly hops off of his bed and smiles to himself as he walks out into the crowd of Wanna One members in the living room. Some of them were laughing about stupid things, some of them were running around, and some of them were just laying on the floor. They all seemed to be getting along well, despite some people never really interacting with each other during the survival show.

“Maybe, just maybe, I can get used to this.”

  


He’s dressed in crisp black slacks, a white button up and a grey blazer with two pins on it: a small gold crown and a blue name tag clipped onto it that clearly reads “Kim Jonghyun” that also has the logo that he dreads, Produce 101. He looks all around him, quite confused, as everyone is scrambling about and trying to get ready.

“Jonghyun-ah, what are you doing? We were looking for you,” Dongho places his hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder. He looks next to the main vocal and sees Minki and Minhyun as well standing next to him. His heart softens seeing his brothers with him and smiles, “Sorry. I was caught up in a few things. What’s up?”

“What do you mean ‘what’s up?’ We have to go out soon for the results! They’re gonna get mad at us if we don’t get there in five minutes,” Dongho pulls Jonghyun by the hand before he can even think. The other two follow quietly, a smile glued onto their faces that Jonghyun knows isn’t genuine. Before he can even speak to Minhyun and Minki, someone pulls him into a tight hug.

“No matter what happens, lets still keep in touch, okay?” Jonghyun pulls away and looks at the person who happens to be Im Youngmin. He laughs and ruffles the other’s hair with a bright smile, “We’re friends. Why wouldn’t we stay in touch?” Youngmin nods and agrees, getting slight teary eyed, but Jonghyun is quick to wipe his potential tears away as he doesn’t want the other’s makeup to get ruined.

It doesn’t hit Jonghyun where he is until he steps onstage and is hit by the bright lights. He looks out into the crowd and spots Aron who is happily cheering from afar. He sees his fans as well cheering for him as his family members. It is the Produce 101 Season 2 finale and Jonghyun is going to live through it all over again.

“10th place, C9 Bae Jinyoung!”

If dramatic pauses were already tedious when you don’t know the outcome, Jonghyun can attest to saying that dramatic pauses when you know the outcome are even worse because it feels like there’s no point in waiting. He tries to relax his body as Jonghyun knows who is going to be next, but he still feels jittery waiting for the next person to be called. He already experienced this once and it is going to be Hwang Minhyun and they were going to be separated. Jonghyun already knows the story and he preps himself to swallow his emotions and act like him being away from his boyfriend isn’t going to hurt him.

“9th place, Pledis…” Jonghyun looks to Minhyun right away, waiting for BoA to finish and say his boyfriend’s name just as he remembers it to be. He can see Aron in the back screaming and he laughs at it caught him off guard. Jonghyun focuses his attention back onto BoA and it doesn’t take her long to say the words he expects to hear.

 

“Kim Jonghyun!”

 

Or not.

 

Jonghyun stands there in disbelief, unsure whether he heard that right. As people came running towards him to hug and congratulate, he realizes he did hear right. It was him who was called, not Minhyun. In the midst of all the people surrounding him, he makes eye contact with his boyfriend and looks into his eyes that give him a somber look. He can’t help but feel pain during what is supposed to be an exciting moment. Minhyun is the first to look away and Jonghyun leaves the crowd, gives his acceptance speech, which he half-assed, and sits on the chair with the golden 9.

The rest of the finale moves on as he almost as he remembers it. Jisung, Woojin, Seongwoo, Jaehwan, Daehwi, Jihoon, and Daniel are all called up, but also Seonho instead of Guanline. He looks past it because throughout it all, Jonghyun only kept his attention on Minhyun. Even though in the later episodes, Jonghyun ranked higher than Minhyun, he knew Minhyun had hope to be with him in the top 11 that it broke his heart. He can feel his eyes tearing up as the seats fill up and he looks up at the ceiling. This isn’t true. This isn’t his reality. But why does he feel like it is all _too_ real?

“14th place, Pledis Hwang Minhyun”

Jonghyun can feel his heart shatter as his brain automatically thought of life without his boyfriend. With him taking Minhyun’s spot, he figures it’s only natural that Minhyun takes his spot, but it still hurts him. He takes a deep breath, trying hard to not get emotional. He watches as Minhyun thanks everyone and gives a soft bow, trying to hide his pain from the world. “Hey, are you okay?” Jisung looks over at Jonghyun with a concerned face. He nods, not meaning it, but not wanting to say anything else but yes. He smiles to reassure the elder, but he can feel his eyes even getting more watery. Jonghyun looks away, not wanting to concern the other any further.

“13th place, Pledis Kang Dongho”

Dongho placing 13th isn’t a surprise to Jonghyun, but just the thought of being without his members, as Minki was already announced to not be in the top 11 and Aron not participating in Produce 101, is a slap in the face to him. Although he loves Minhyun romantically, the members of NU’EST have had a bond like no other and being separated from that scares him. BoA soon announce Sungwoon as the 11th member, as expected, but Jonghyun is barely paying attention and in his own sad thoughts of being separated.

_No more Minki blasting Lady Gaga at 3am. No more Dongho pulling pranks on me. No more Aron trying to help me with my English. No more Minhyun cleaning up after my mess. No more late night cuddling. No more morning kisses. No more NU’EST right by my side until 2019._

Suddenly remembering he’s on live TV, he fake smiles as they wrap up the show, but honestly Jonghyun can’t care less. His emotions are getting the best of him and all he wants to do is cry it out. As they finally finish, he comes down from the pyramid and gets greeted by a lot of the people who were eliminated, but he makes his way through the crowd to stand by himself.

Minhyun is the sunshine of his life. He’s the one who keeps Jonghyun on his feet and held together. He knows him better than anyone else and he can’t imagine life without him, but suddenly that is reality. He feels like his brain is toying with him as he’s confused since what he remembers happening on the finale is conflicting to what is happening right now. It frustrates him because he doesn’t want any of this. He doesn’t want to experience life as an eliminated member or as top 11. He just wants to be with Minhyun.

“Hyung, it’ll be okay, don’t cry,” Guanlin whispers as he wraps his arms around Jonghyun, rubbing his back in attempt to comfort him. Jonghyun holds onto him and he can feel the tears falling onto the younger’s shoulder. Guanlin doesn’t let go and continues to bother him to cheer the other up. Although Jonghyun was a bit annoyed because he wanted to be alone, he felt loved that Guanlin wanted him to stop crying.

“Hey, no more crying,” Jonghyun looks over and sees Minhyun giving him a warm smile as he pulls him into a hug, “You look beautiful when you’re smiling. Don’t cry anymore, please.” Rather than comforting him, he can feel tears streaming down his face even harder. He doesn’t want to show this image, especially with the cameramen everywhere, but Jonghyun can’t control himself anymore.

Hyunbin comes by and has a huge smile on his face, but it quickly disappears after seeing the tears in the leader’s eyes. He runs over and gives the elder a big hug, bringing Minhyun into the hug a couple seconds later. Jonghyun knows Hyunbin has cheering for him that of course he would be happy seeing his pick get into the top 11, but for sure he wasn’t expecting it to be like this. “Hyunbin, I swear, you better not cry too right now,” Minhyun jokes.

The younger pats his face after letting go and smiles, “I’m not! It’s just… Jonghyun hyung,” Hyunbin looks at Jonghyun with a sad look in his eyes. Jonghyun looks away and scoffs, trying to hold his reliable image, “Don’t worry about me. Go greet the others, okay?” Hyunbin stands there for a brief moment in silence before doing as he’s told. Once gone, Jonghyun looks back up to the ceiling, trying hard not to calm down. He doesn’t want Hyunbin, someone who looks up to him dearly, to see him sad.

“You’re such a baby. _My_ baby,” Minhyun chuckles as starts to walk away, “I’m going to talk to the others and congratulate them.”

Jonghyun is feeling like an absolute mess. His eyes are worn out from all the tears and all he wants to do at this point is try to enjoy everyone’s presence because he feels so exhausted. Everyone walks backstage and sits down. Guanlin is still tagging along behind him and keeping him company. People are still coming by and congratulating him, giving him hugs and warm encouragements. It does mean alot to him, but it’s not what he needs. Minhyun laughs at him once again for crying, as well as weakly congratulating him in front of the cameras. Guanlin is still by his side, talking to him to make him feel better. Dongho and Minki are also there to comfort him.

“Think of the bright side,” Dongho laughs as he pats Jonghyun’s back, “At least one of us made it, right?”

Jonghyun stays quiet, not wanting to agree. By now his tears are dried up and he gets called by one of the staff members to record a message on camera for the fans. He knows for sure his eyes are puffy and he doesn’t look the best, but he still records it well. He makes sure to thank his members for being with him for so long and says that he’ll miss them throughout the next 1 ½ years. As soon as he finishes, Minhyun silently pulls Jonghyun to the side where he knows no cameras are allowed. He puts his hand on the wall behind Jonghyun with a serious look in his eyes.

“W-what are you doing?” Jonghyun stutters as he avoids eye contact with the other. This isn’t anything new to him after dating for so long, but he feels startled as he didn’t expect Minhyun to be so bold at this moment.

“I wanna kiss you because I don’t know when I’ll be able to kiss you again.” Minhyun gently moves Jonghyun’s head to face him. He slowly leans forward, briefly stopping himself with a few centimeters in between their lips, taking in the moment. He softly smiles before pressing his lips against the other’s. Jonghyun kisses back eagerly and Minhyun’s arm wraps around the leader as he pulls himself closer to him. This is Jonghyun’s bliss, being with his boyfriend and feeling his warm presence. With all the tears, he felt broken, but Minhyun is making him feel whole again until...

  


“Jonghyun hyung, are you okay?” Jaehwan loudly whispers as he stands in front of Jonghyun’s bed, “I was getting a glass of water and I heard you crying and mumbling random words in your sleep.”

Jonghyun quickly sits up and pats his face, feeling the leftover tears still running down his face. He smiles at Jaehwan and pats his head, “I’m fine. I just had a weird dream about Produce 101 finale and it felt so real where it was exactly the same, but Minhyun got 14th and I got 9th and it was a lot of emotion and--”

“But that sounds like exactly what happened, hyung. How is that a weird dream?” Jaehwan blinks in confusion, “Sounds more like a flashback to me if anything.”

He laughs at himself internally as he had briefly forgot where he is, “Never mind. Just go to bed. Thanks for worrying for me,” Jonghyun lays back down and tucks himself into the sheets. Jaehwan stands there for a moment, not wanting to let the conversation go just yet, but he decides to go back to bed and quickly falls back asleep.

Jonghyun rolls over to his side and sighs, “I guess I’m still in this harsh reality without any of the NU’EST members by my side.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear it'll get happier i just gotta set the emo foundation :^) this is unbeta-ed and i am looking for a beta reader so pls hit me up if you wanna be my beta!! i'm still wishy washy about the structure and tense of my writing but i hope it doesn't disturb u guys from the content!!
> 
> as usual please feel free to talk to me about 2hyun (or any other pd101 ship) on [twitter](https://twitter.com/projectydpp)  
> or talk to me / ask me questions / send me plots you would like a short whip/drabble of at my [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/btobooty)


	3. a scene without you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **for readers who have started this fic before this current update:** i changed a part of this fic where seonho is swapped with guanlin. i edited previous chapters to vaguely show it so if you want to go back and find those edits, feel free, but that's the main thing to note when reading this chapter.

“Daniel, you start at the beginning of the song until…”

Jonghyun chuckles to himself as he looks at the line distribution for Energetic and Burn It Up. At this point, Wanna One has only been practicing the choreography with the guide vocal so they had no idea who was getting what part. He knew for sure it was going to be different because he could not sing Minhyun’s lines in either song (or any for that matter) and Seonho simply is a wild card.

In comparison to how he knows the potential title tracks, Energetic has Daniel starting off the song so he would be the one sitting at the piano in the choreography instead of his Minhyun. ( _Just like how Daniel’s fans wanted,_ Jonghyun thinks to himself.) Daehwi’s first set of lines go to Seonho and his second set of lines go to Daniel. Daehwi takes Minhyun’s chorus lines, Daniel takes Guanlin’s rap and Jonghyun takes Daniel’s rap parts. Burn It Up has Daehwi taking Minhyun’s lines, Seonho taking Daehwi’s lines, and Jonghyun taking Guanlin’s lines as well as Woojin’s last set of lines, which means he is center for the bridge as well.

After highlighting who has which parts, they decide to try running through the songs as a whole, starting off with Energetic. Jonghyun has listened to Wanna One’s music more than he would like to admit as yes, he was mad at Minhyun but he would find himself listening to the songs just to hear his boyfriend’s music. It feels weird for Jonghyun to listen to what he knows as someone else’s lines. Daniel’s vocals, in the beginning, are a bit shaky and the leader can’t help but think that of course he’s shaky because they’re not his lines after all, not in Jonghyun’s reality. But what surprises Jonghyun the most is Daehwi singing Minhyun’s lines because he’s used to the power in his boyfriend’s vocals for those parts, but Daehwi, a more softer vocal, is still killing it and Jonghyun’s happy the younger is getting a little more spotlight with one less vocalist on the team.

“Jonghyun, good job with those rap parts,” the rap instructor compliments, followed by the other ten members gazing at him with smiles, “That was just about perfect. You’re setting a perfect example for everyone else as a leader should.” Jonghyun smiles softly and simply thanks the him with a soft blush to his cheeks. He knows he can’t take all the credit as he’s heard how the rap is supposed to go dozens of times, while the other members have not.

But knowing how good each of them are, he is certain that they’ll get it down soon enough.

 

Album recording happens quicker than Jonghyun expects, only a couple of days after receiving their lines. Compared to when NU’EST recorded their debut album, Wanna One’s runs much smoother as everyone has had experience from Produce 101 and also because of the previous debut experience for him and Sungwoon.

“Neowa naui ipsuri jeomjeom...” Daniel sings softly, almost sending chills down Jonghyun’s spine. He hears it in his head with Minhyun singing it in the background, supporting the center. Jonghyun knows it’s not real but he does love the idea of Minhyun still being a part of all this.

“I don’t know why…” Seonho’s voice is soft but with a punch, almost imitating how Daehwi sung it in Jonghyun’s reality. He wishes the youngest had received more lines, but he knows that the vocals of this song are very intensive for someone who started idol training less than a year ago.

Jonghyun steps into the recording booth and slips on the headphones, clearing his throat a bit before rapping. “Uh uh, work your body…”  He tries not to just copy how he knows it’s supposed to be but adds his own twist by having a slightly different groove and tone to his rap.

“Nice, nice good!” the sound engineer gives a thumbs up to Jonghyun and the leader can’t help but smile. They go through it a couple more times just to be safe. Once done, he steps out of the booth and sits at the open seat, which is next to Daniel.

“Hyung, you’re so cool! You went in and out so fast!” the younger smiles, his two bunny teeth prominently showing and automatically putting a smile on Jonghyun’s face.

“Aw, thanks, Daniel,” Jonghyun blushes and Seongwu scoffs in the background. “I can do better, just watch.” he bluffs with lilt in his voice, making it obvious to Jonghyun that he’s bluffing just like during Produce 101 Punching King.

“Oh okay!” Daniel’s eyes glisten as he easily believes the other’s bluff. _Of course he would believe him,_ Jonghyun laughs to himself, “Go on ahead and show us.”

With a big grin and a prideful stride, Seongwu walks into the recording studio. His parts not changing at all, Jonghyun comfortably listens as the other sings. Being a rapper, the leader can’t critique singing well so he stays quiet.

“Seongwu, you’re a little shaky in the beginning. Do it again,” the sound engineer twirls his fingers to coordinate his words. Jonghyun can’t help but laugh as he notices Seongwu grit his teeth. They run it over a couple times before it goes smoothly.

Jonghyun turns to Daniel to laugh at Seongwu, but the center is focused on the vocalist with the same gleaming eyes as when Jonghyun last glanced over at him. The two have been in a relationship for a couple months now, much shorter than Jonghyun and Minhyun, but he can’t help but be in awe of how his eyes just ooze love for his boyfriend. Their love is bright and noticeable even in the most inconsequential moments and Jonghyun can’t help but be jealous.

“Hey, so what happened to doing better than me, huh?” the leader grins as Seongwu finally steps out of the booth. Seongwu crosses his arms and turns the other way.

“Shut up, Jonghyun.”

 

As soon as the sound engineers pieced together Energetic and Burn It Up, they begin shooting the teasers for their comeback, where their fans choose which song will be the title track. Jonghyun is the first one up and is assigned the same kitchen teaser as Minhyun had. He’s watched that video more times than he can count so the filming is easy for him. It is, however, a little hard for him to produce the same charismatic aura that his boyfriend had, but he’s happy that the staff are satisfied.

“Jonghyun, nice work.” He laughs to himself at how everyone thinks he’s being a great role model and doing really well with his talent and experience alone, when really it’s also so much more than that.

It almost makes him feel like he’s lying to everyone, but it’s not like he can tell them anything.

He watches as everyone else films, not having a phone to keep him busy as he waits. He would love to be watching anime or reading manga, and of course it would be nice to talk to Minhyun too. That was what he usually did during filmings anyway.

Jonghyun would watch anime or read manga while it was Minhyun’s turns to record but once he had him all to himself, he would joke around and giggle all the time with Minhyun. They would make fun of the other members trying to act cool or play phone games together. Minhyun was– no, _is_ his best friend and he wishes that he could be with him right now just like what he’s used to.

 

“Hyung, Burn It Up or Energetic, which do you think will win?” it’s their dinner break and Daniel grins mischievously, “We’re having a bet on it.”

It feels funny that Jonghyun can predict the future, but he smiles, “It’s going to be Energetic, of course.”

“Well, I th--”

“I agree with Jonghyun hyung!” Seonho interjects as he walks over, coming late as he just finishes his shoot. “Energetic is superior no doubt!”

Daniel shrugs, “Well, everyone except you two, Jaehwan and Sungwoon thinks it’ll be Burn It Up,” he side eyes the two strong vocalists that are laughing like hyenas before speaking just loud enough for them to hear, “I’m pretty sure they’re only saying Energetic because they want it to be Energetic since it’s all high pitched and perfect for them and them _only._ ”

“Excuse me!” Jaehwan walks over with a slight glare with Sungwoon following from behind with hands on his hips, “If we were only thinking of benefits, you have to consider that our backs have been hurting from the human piano, but of course, you can’t complain as you’re comfortably sitting on Daehwi and Jihoon!” Sungwoon agrees verbally with a corresponding nod.

Jisung joins in and smacks Jaehwan and Sungwoon on the head, “Are you calling me and Seonho fat?” Jaehwan and Sungwoon look at the eldest wide-eyed, but as the main vocalist begins to defend himself, Sungwoon slowly walked away towards another group of people.

“Wait, hyung, n-no! It’s not like that!” Jaehwan clings onto Jisung’s arm, who pushes him away with sass, “Yeah sure, Jaehwan. We understand how you feel, right Seonho?”

Jisung looks to Seonho for confirmation in which Seonho responds with his arms crossed and a head nod, “Wow, I guess this is the typical maknae bullying in idol groups, huh?”

Jaehwan runs to Seonho and wraps his arms around him, “Seonho, you’re perfect the way you are. I’m not a mean hyung. I swear!”

Jonghyun watches as the conversation progresses, which is basically a bunch of Jaehwan roasting. He laughs a lot, feeling that his stomach is going to burst. “Jonghyun hyung! Help me out here!” the main vocalist whines with a pout.

“Alright, everyone back to filming!” the director yells before Jonghyun could respond. The crowd disperses and those who aren’t done head to their filming locations. Jonghyun lays down on a nearby couch before falling asleep.

  


Seonho is a wild card and Jonghyun means that in every aspect. He could mean it with how Seonho’s blossoming talent has no limits in all areas, singing, dancing, acting and even variety or even just how Seonho tends to randomly interject in conversations. However, Jonghyun’s main concern is with who Seonho is.

Jonghyun knows who Seonho is. He is the fifteen year old recently claimed vocalist that trained for six months at Cube Entertainment before appearing on Produce 101 Season 2 that Minhyun took a liking toward. Seonho is quirky and cute and also gleams with good looks and talent. But it’s not that. Jonghyun wonders whether Seonho is also like him in that he’s traveled dimensions and somehow ended up here. With the Wanna One line up originally being Guanlin instead of him just like Minhyun instead of Jonghyun, he can’t help but think about it. Jonghyun wants to ask or try to say something, but he’s afraid to be wrong and confuse everyone. He can’t simply ask, “Hey, are you also in an alternate dimension?” or “Hey, did you also swap positions with your boyfriend?” (which can also mean many other things that Jonghyun is aware of).

Jonghyun has been observing the little chick, but it’s hard to come to conclusion. In the beginning, Seonho didn’t display any confusion like Jonghyun did, but the. again Jonghyun doesn’t remember much of the other then because he only focused on himself. When it came to practice, Jonghyun couldn’t be sure if Seonho was struggling because he didn’t learn the dance in their reality, because he’s still not a great dancer/singer since he hasn’t had as much training like everyone else, or because he just does not know the songs. It is all too confusing and Jonghyun doesn’t want to spend too much thought on it.

 

“Alright everyone. I have an announcement!” their dance instructor claps his hands to call for their attention after practice, “I have the results of which song will be our title track. Drum roll please.”

“Wanna One’s debut title track is… ” The members drum on their thighs with smiles on their face in much anticipation. Jonghyun isn’t too amused as he already knows the answer. If not much around him as changed besides swapping, he knows that the fans will still have the same taste of music.

“Burn It Up!”

Everyone who betted on Burn It Up yells in excitement. Jonghyun sits on the chair in a little bit of a daze, but he still pays attention to how everyone crowds around the strongest vocalists and tells them to pay up.

“But it’s _supposed_ to be-”

Jonghyun’s attention shifts to the source of the voice, Seonho, who doesn’t notice the leader looking at him. Jonghyun watches as Seonho stops himself, covering his mouth but no one else pays attention. _He said supposed to be, not  it should have been._ Jonghyun thinks to himself, _It’s as if he knows that Energetic should've been the title track._

Seonho doesn’t join Wanna One’s teasing but stays lost in thought and away from the crowd. _No, he must know that this isn’t how it should be._

As the attention is still on the two strongest vocalists, Jonghyun quickly gets up and grabs Seonho by the arms, whispering “Seonho, let's talk.” He brings the younger into a secluded vocal practice room. Dance practice is over anyway and they were just going to all head home, so it shouldn’t be a problem for them to be away from the rest of the team.

Jonghyun closes the door and makes sure it’s locked before speaking, “You’re like me, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Seonho looks off to the side, not making eye contact as he bit his lip.

The leader sighs before stating the facts, “Energetic should’ve been the title track, right? It’s the song that’ll debut with an all kill on charts. But most importantly, it’s the song that should have Minhyun as center on the human piano with a certain Taiwanese boy rapping at the end.”

Seonho turns to look at Jonghyun with tears in eyes before clinging onto him, “You too, huh?” he whispers softly, his voice heavy with hurt, breaking the leader’s heart. Jonghyun wraps his arms around the other, rubbing his back, “Yes, me too.”

There’s no other words said for now as Jonghyun allows Seonho to cry it all out, his tears soaking Jonghyun’s sleeve. He knows that all of this must have impacted the other much more than him. At least for Jonghyun, he has gone through a lot and has matured over time to take the situation a bit better, but Seonho is still young and naive. He’s only fifteen years old, not even in high school yet, but experiencing something so incomprehensible and overwhelming.

Once he finishes his tears, Seonho explains everything to Jonghyun. He tells him how he swapped with Guanlin on the same day, but because he woke up earlier than him, he was able to grasp the situation a little bit earlier than Jonghyun.

“Was it not obvious that something was weird when I was confused that morning?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it. You’re kinda clumsy normally anyway,” Seonho chuckles, bringing a small smile to Jonghyun’s face.

 

“Seonho, my precious baby! It’s morning!” Jisung shakes the other with a big grin on his face.

The younger slowly opens his eyes, but jolts awake and scoots away once he sees the eldest hyung, “W-what are you doing here?” He looks around him and becomes even more confused, “W-wait. What am I doing here?”

“What do you mean? We got to get ready! Come on!” Jisung pulls the youngest out of bed and into the living room. Seonho, barely up on his two feet, looks around and is amazed. Wanna One’s dorm isn’t foreign to me as he’s been over several times, either for Wanna One Go or just sleeping over for Guanlin (and maybe also his favorite hyung, Minhyun). However, he doesn’t remember sleeping over as Wanna One’s been very busy, “Where is Guanlin?”

Jisung furrows his eyebrows, “Why would I know that?”

“Because you’re leader.”

“No, I’m not. That’s Jonghyun. I’m just hyung.” Jisung blinks at the other before walking to the bathroom, “I’ll be using it first to take a quick shower. You can use it after.”

Seonho nods, not wanting to question any further. He pinches himself and ouch, this is not a dream. He looks for his phone because maybe he can text Guanlin and ask him what the hell is going on, but he searches under the couch, in the drawers, on his boyfriend’s bed, nothing.

“Good morning, Seonho,” Daniel stretches as he walks out of his room, “Man, I wish they didn’t take our phones away. I miss playing on my phone before getting out of bed.”

The younger stops in the middle of his search and looks to the other with a forced chuckle, “Yeah, I know right. I wonder why they had to do that.” He places the couch cushion back into place a second before Daniel sits on it, stretching out his legs casually.

“Something about having a ‘rookie mentality’ since we’re preparing for debut. God, it sucks,” Daniel huffs, “I thought I wouldn’t be so attached but I took my phone for granted. I miss having it to watch videos while I take a shit.”

“That’s funny, hyung,” Seonho laughs loudly at the last part, easing some of the tension in his body, “How long do you think they’ll take our phones for?”

Daniel purses his lips in thought, “Hmm, maybe two months? We just moved in yesterday and if we work hard we can probably debut soon.”

Seonho nods with a soft smile, trying to hide from him the swarm of confused thoughts going on in his mind. He realizes he’s a member of Wanna One now, but why?

 

Seonho takes a deep breath in and out, “After that, I just kinda accepted the fact that I’m a part of Wanna One here. I don’t know why or how, but I– I mean, _we_ are just in this weird situation.”

The room is silent, unsure what to say to one another until Seonho speaks again, “What were you doing the day before the switch?”

Jonghyun thinks for a moment, “I don’t really remember much honestly. I remember drinking soju alone in my room and getting upset over Minhyun, but that’s not anything new. I vaguely remember shards of glass on the floor, but that’s all. Drinking isn’t a good habit and this is why you shouldn’t do it,” he jokes, wagging his finger at the other, “What about you? What were you doing?”

“I remember everything so vividly,” Seonho softly sighs.

 

Seonho lives in a small apartment close to school and the company. His family lives in the adjacent city, Incheon, and comes often to feed him as well as keep him company. The commute for Seonho to go to where he needs to be became too hard for him which is why he moved out at such a young age.

He feels like he’s in such an awkward spot in his life where he has schedules, acting opportunities, and bigger popularity than most trainees, but he’s not officially debuted. Being in the company for so little time before Produce 101, his one true friend is Lai Guanlin, but he’s not with him all the time because of obvious reasons.

Guanlin and Seonho’s relationship started before Produce 101. As they entered the company around the same time, they became the new kids together. Seonho adored Guanlin and was the biggest help to Guanlin learning Korean as well as feeling comfortable being in a new country. Although Guanlin is the older one, Seonho always feels like he’s the older one as he teaches the Taiwanese boy and takes care of him dearly.

But he loves it. He loves _him._

**To: Yoo are Mine [01:28am]**

hi, can I call you soon?

**To: Guanlin-ie! [01:30am]**

sure, i’m not doing anything anyway so just call when ur ready

 

A couple minutes later, Seonho hears his phone ringing and he picks up the phone with a smile as he hasn’t talked to his boyfriend in quite some time.

But his smile quickly goes away as he hears Guanlin in tears, barely able to speak his words clearly enough for Seonho to understand. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know why I’m feeling so pained right now, but I am,” Guanlin’s voice trembles heavily, “I just look at everyone around me and they’re so good. They all have been practicing for much longer than me and it’s hard when I see them get a dance or a rap down right that I struggle so much on. I feel like I don’t deserve to be in such a talented and well-loved group.”

“Don’t say that. You’re amazing and you’ve done so well so far,” Seonho’s fingers rub on his sheets nervously as he feels fidgety, “You’re doing your best and that’s all that matters.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re my boyfriend,” the older boy sniffles and Seonho bites his lower lip, “Guanlin, I truly believe every word I say. The fact that I’m dating you doesn’t waiver my opinions. I love you.”

There’s silence for a few moments before Guanlin speaks again a lot softer than earlier, “I love you too. I just get so worried that I’m dragging everyone down. I worry if I’m saying the right words because I’m not fluent in Korean yet. I worry if they secretly hate me because they wish someone else was in the group and not me! I worry so much and it destroys me. It’s just so hard and hurts my heart because I can’t help but think this way. It’s so toxic and I’m scared to tell hyungs because I don’t want to burden them with my emotions. I don’t want to hear them say ‘it’s okay’ and ‘you’re wrong, Guanlin’ because I feel like I’ll never believe them. It just sucks you’re not here beside me through it all.”

“You know I’m always a phone call away.”

“It’s not the same, babe,” Seonho can hear his boyfriend’s voice quavering, “I can’t cry into your arms when life gets tough like how it was when we were training together. I can’t feel comforted just by being your arms. I can’t hear you whisper sweet nothings into my ear like you used to. You’re not here and it hurts because I miss you _sooo_ much. ”

Seonho’s heart breaks into pieces. He misses the other too and has felt alone especially being so secluded from everyone, but he never thought that Guanlin was this lonely, “Well, where are you now? We’re not that far apart. I can get a taxi and be by your side and we can–”

“Wait, no. Don’t.”

“W-what?”

“Don’t come, please.”

The younger can feel himself get frustrated. How can his boyfriend go from “I miss you” to “Don’t come” so quickly? “Guanlin, I want to be here for you and you obviously need someone there for you right now. It’s not too hard for me to come over.”

“I don’t want to burden you like this. I shouldn’t have even called. I’m sorry.”

With the shakiness of Guanlin’s breath, Seonho can imagine as the tears pour down his face. He balls up his sheets in his hands in grievance, “Don’t say sorry. You’re not burdening me! I love you so much and I only want the best for you.”

“I love you too, but I think it was a mistake to call. I think I just… need to be alone for a while.”

Guanlin hangs up before Seonho can even say anything. Seonho tries calling again, but it goes straight to voicemail. He calls the other Wanna One members, but none of them respond either that he throws his phone across the room in irritation. He doesn’t even care of the screen shatters or not because he’s just too upset at the moment. Once the first tear falls, the rest follow in an unbroken steam. Seonho sinks his face into his pillows and muffles his audible sobbing.

The Taiwanese boy as always been emotionally weak since the moment Seonho has met him, but Seonho doesn’t blame him. Guanlin is a country away from his family at such a young age and he’s constantly having to learn new things at such a fast pace that he’s been so stressed throughout it all. Seonho has been worried for him from the start that it hurts that he feels like he can’t be there for him. He wishes that his boyfriend wasn’t in so much pain, that he could rely on him and feel comforted.

Seonho turns to the side and tries to calm down as he lays in bed, “Maybe Guanlin shouldn’t have gotten into Wanna One. Maybe it should’ve been me instead. At least if it was me, I could shoulder through all of it and protect my boyfriend from all the pain.”

 

Seonho painfully smiles at Jonghyun with tears in his eyes once again after speaking about his memory, “Be careful what you wish for, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going to try to be consistent with my updates maybe every week or every other week i'll post something over the weekend ;__; also i found a beta reader which is [tsubame_go](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsubame_go)  
> so credits to her and please check out her fics she's amazing!


	4. big deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> happy together and official debut. (welcome to emo town)

“You’ve never cried before, Jonghyun?”

Jonghyun looks at the man and hesitates for a brief moment as he thinks about the last time he cried, “Recently I did...”

  
  


The days become routine with simply practicing, eating, and sleeping. Knowing that he now has Jonghyun for comfort, Seonho often cuddles with the leader whenever he can’t sleep (“Seonho, it’s the summer. I’m dying in this heat alone!” “But hyung!”). Jonghyun hates it at first, but he learns to accept the younger’s clinginess. The members suspect something happening between the two at first, but Jonghyun constantly reminds them that anything like that happening between the two is  _ literally  _ illegal.

“I miss him a lot,” Seonho whispers one night when everyone else in their room has fallen asleep, “I don’t even know what he’s doing right now.”

Jonghyun rubs Seonho’s back softly with a sigh, “I’m sure he’s doing fine. Don’t worry so much.”

“But like is he eating well? Is he smiling? Is he stressed? I have no idea.”

“Like I said, I’m sure he’s fine, do--”

“Go to bed already!” Jihoon hisses as he taps on their shared bed frame, “We have to wake up in a couple hours.”

Jonghyun sticks his head out and looks at Jihoon. His hair is noticeably messy from tossing and turning, probably having a hard time sleeping, “Sorry, Jihoon.”

The leader looks back at Seonho only to find him asleep in his arms already. He observes his features -- soft hair, perfect skin (especially for a teenager), lips that are puffed out slightly. The younger looks so peaceful when asleep and it’s hard to tell that he’s usually emotionally stressed and tired.

_ “Be careful what you wish for, right?” _

Those words stick out the most to Jonghyun. As the days pass, his last day in his reality fade from his memories more and more. He remembers being upset at Minhyun and wanting him to be responsive. He remembers hurting because he felt like he was abandoned by his boyfriend. The more he thinks about it, the more the pain comes back. Jonghyun holds onto his chest as he feels it sting while Seonho moves in his sleep and faces the wall.

Jonghyun carefully slips his arm from under Seonho and gets out of bed, hoping not to disturb the younger from his sleep. He checks to make sure Jihoon has finally fallen asleep, which he has, and steps outside into the living room. It’s completely dark and Jonghyun stumbles to find a light switch, almost tripping on a million things before doing so. “If Minhyun was here, this place would be clean,” he thinks to himself before getting a glass of water.

He sits down as he sips on his water, tapping on the table softly with his fingers, “I miss you a lot, Minhyun,” Jonghyun whispers to himself, well aware no one’s going to respond, “I miss your warm touch and your soft hands. I miss looking into your eyes and seeing myself in them.”

He feels his emotions take the best of him as he eyes well up in tears. Once the first one falls, the rest follow uncontrollably. His hand balls up into a fist as he hits the table lightly, “I miss hearing your voice and being in your comforting embrace. I miss hearing you say ‘I love you.’”

Jonghyun sinks to his seat, his head resting on his arms as he softly cries, hoping no one hears and sees him in this state. He hates people worrying about him, especially people he’s supposed to be leading.

But one person does, wanting to get water just as Jonghyun did. He hesitates to comfort the other, but ultimately turns around and goes back into his room.

  
  
  


Jonghyun shakes the most recent memory out of his head and decides to say what everyone else knows as the last time he cried, “Produce 101 last episode, I cried a lot.” Everyone oohs and aahs, “I just thought one of my members would be with me in Wanna One, but as the last person was called, the three of them were in front of me with warm smiles and I was the only one.”

The atmosphere gets serious, but how could it not after such a serious question? The other Wanna One members simply nod. There’s nothing else really to say, but the MC goes on, “When was the last time you cried before that?”

Jonghyun purses his lips. He knows when it was Minhyun having this interview, he said when Dongho choked him and that lightened the atmosphere. However, he can’t say that simply because it’s not his memory and Minhyun had told some of the Wanna One members about the incident during Produce 101. All the times that Jonghyun has cried that come to his head have been serious and he doesn’t want to continue dwelling on this on a variety show.

“I think it was during a Japanese concert,” Jonghyun sighs, “I wrote a heartfelt letter, thanking all my members for following me. I was one of the youngest idols in kpop history to be a leader. With one of them being older and the rest being the same age, I didn’t feel like I knew any better than them to be leader, but they still followed diligently.”

Jisung places a hand on Jonghyun’s knee and smiles as everyone else nods. “Jonghyun is a very emotional person, if you can’t tell.”

“I’m not! I just have had a lot of emotional experiences. I swear!” Jonghyun shakes his head and the others just laugh.

“I’m just joking. With a question like that, it’s hard not to be serious.” Jisung quickly changes the topic, telling a story about something funny. Jonghyun puts his emotional memories past him and enjoys the rest of the shoot.

  
  
  


“Hey, Jonghyun-ah. Can I talk to you in private for a bit?” Jisung smiles as he looks at Jonghyun who is straight out of the shower.

“Uhm, sure. We can go outside or something if you want?” Jonghyun ruffles his hair with his towel to dry it. “My room is a little crowded.”

Jisung shakes his head, “Ong and Daniel went out somewhere so we can just go in my room.” He holds out the door for Jonghyun and the leader walks in first and sits on the Daniel’s bed.

The elder closes the door behind him and leans on the bunk bed,taking a deep breath. “I’m going to start off and say that I know I’m not leader and I don’t have nearly as much experience as you do, but as the eldest hyung, I feel like I have some responsibility.”

Jonghyun nods, but he can’t help but feel worried. Since they were never on the same team in Produce 101, he always felt a bit awkward with Jisung. Although he can say the same for Jinyoung and Jihoon, Jisung is an unfamiliar hyung he has to lead.

“I personally feel like you shouldn’t bring up NU’EST during shows and interviews like you did today.” Jisung says firmly, pursing his lips.

“What do you mean? They asked me first, Jisung hyung.” Jonghyun’s eyebrows furrow and he can feel his temper rise.

“J-Just hear me out, please?” Jisung softens his expression, “I don’t mean to insult you or your team at all. Hell, I was your fan for a long time. It’s just people might take it the wrong way. If you keep talking about NU’EST when you’re in Wanna One, people might think you’re ungrateful for Wanna One. I also don’t want any of the members to think that we’re only second tier to you.”

“I’m still in NU’EST, hyung. I never left them,” the leader grits through his teeth.

“I know that. I jus--”

Jonghyun sighs, “Think of it this way. How do you think Minhyun, Dongho, Minki, and Aron will feel if I completely disregard them for the next year and a half? How do you think NU’EST fans will feel if I completely ignore their favorite group? Don’t you think they’d feel abandoned?” The volume of his voice rises as he remembers the pain of feeling forgotten by Minhyun.

“They know how this industry is! They’re not stupid! For sure, they’ll understand that this is what you have to do,” Jisung unintentionally matches Jonghyun’s tone, getting the other more frustrated.

_ “He’s basically calling me stupid for being hurt,”  _ Jonghyun thinks to himself before speaking, “No, they’re not. For someone they’ve seen almost every day of their life to not hearing a word, it’s going to be hard for them to understand. It’s going to painful. You wouldn’t know,” Jonghyun spat the last part with attitude.

Jisung pauses, letting the other’s words echo in the room as he crosses his arms. He looks at Jonghyun and raises a brow, “Are you sure you’re not being sensitive about this because of your  _ boyfriend’s  _ feelings in particular and not NU’EST and fans? I saw you sitting in the kitchen last night, crying about how much you miss him.”

“Is it wrong to miss my boyfriend?” Jonghyun stands up and stares at Jisung, “But you have no right to say that I’m only thinking of Minhyun. You have no idea the emotional turmoil any of us are going through.”

“You’re right. I don’t and I said that earlier, but I have every right to be worried,” Jisung grits his teeth, “Excluding you, none of us here have a foolproof plan after Wanna One. Not even Sungwoon as we all know NU’EST got way more attention than Hotshot. Just look at how IOI ended up. As much as they did well as a group, their individual activities don’t nearly amount to the same. We need to make the most of the fame we have and you mentioning NU’EST might make things worse.”

Jonghyun wants to yell. He wants to scream at Jisung and tell him to shut up, but he can’t because he knows he’s right. He knows Jisung is only meaning well, but he has to make sure his reality doesn’t happen, “I understand, but I need to watch out for the people I’ve spent years with rather than the ones I’ve known for a couple months.”

“Then maybe you’re not fit to be leader,” Jisung scoffs, “Everyone talked so much on the show about how you’re such a good leader and so responsible, but what you’re showing me is the opposite. You’re acting completely selfish right now.”

“I’m not only Wanna One’s leader, but NU’EST’s as well. I’m not even being selfish. I’m thinking of them,” Jonghyun glares, but Jisung doesn’t even bat an eye.

“You’re active in Wanna One right now, aren’t you?” Jisung pauses, giving Jonghyun a chance to answer but he stays quiet, “Exactly. Be selfless for our group at this moment, not them.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know how else to answer as he knows by now that Jisung’s mind is not going to change. “I’ll do what I want, hyung. I’m tired of arguing knowing we’re being stubborn about our opinions.”

He opens the door only to see a bunch of the members crowding the door, trying to listen. Before they even try to explain, Jonghyun rolls his eyes as he storms off. The leader heads straight to his bed, covering himself in his blankets and facing the wall. He feels so conflicted and it hurts.

His tears can’t be heard by anyone in his room, his pillow being his only witness.

  
  
  
  


A few weeks pass after the argument. They consist of practicing for their debut showcase as well as a couple other pre-recorded interviews that’ll be released once they debut. Jonghyun doesn’t hesitate to mention NU’EST when asked, rather, he answers quite proudly. He tells himself he's doing this for his members' sake. Jisung tells Jonghyun the day after their conversation that he respects his decision as well as apologizes if he came off as rude. Jonghyun quickly forgives him, but he can’t help but feel even more awkward around the older.

With the hectic practicing and little to no sleep, the days fly by. They go from practicing to suddenly filming for both music videos. Jonghyun, being the most experienced out of all of the members, is the least phased by the fatigue that comes with music releases. He tries his best to assist the members as well as reassure them that it’ll get easier.

Seonho has the most amount of trouble and he finds himself more and more frustrated because he knows that means Guanlin had an even harder time since he had to deal with the language barrier as well.

“I should’ve done more to support him somehow,” Seonho mutters in the middle of Energetic recording to Jonghyun. They’re doing individual shots and the two already finished. The younger had pulled the leader aside to talk, “I can’t even imagine how much he struggled. Even though he loves everyone in Wanna One, I’m sure he still felt alone at the same time.”

Seonho’s hands ball up into fists, but Jonghyun puts his hands over them and squeezes them softly, “You did the best that you could. There’s no reason for you to beat yourself up over this. You’re going through a lot already. Don’t add this to your stress, okay?”

The younger takes a deep breath, simply nodding as he rests his head on Jonghyun’s shoulder. Jonghyun pats the other’s head whispering “it’ll be okay” multiple times.

And soon Jonghyun becomes Wanna One’s help center during filming. Daehwi is sleepy and needs help to stay awake. Seongwoo gets mildly jealous of Sungwoon and Daniel. Jisung’s back hurts and needs help cracking it. Woojin and Jihoon get in a fight because someone took a prank a little too far. Jinyoung gets homesick out of nowhere and wants to rant to Jonghyun about it. Daniel worries about not looking sexy enough (“Shut the hell up!” yells the entirety of Wanna One). Jaehwan and Sungwoon have vocal troubles, in which Jonghyun makes the two help each other because why would you ask a rapper who can barely hit a note about singing? It’s ultimately tiring for Jonghyun, but this is his responsibility so he tries not to show his fatigue.

At the same time, Jonghyun’s happy he can help all of them. Throughout it all, he wonders if Minhyun also tried to help the members throughout all of this. Even though he wasn’t leader, he did have the most experience. It’s weird, but despite Jonghyun not even knowing if his assumptions are true or not, he can’t help but feel proud.

  
  
  


From music video filming, they move onto their debut showcase. The venue is huge and Jonghyun finds it unbelievable. When he’s onstage and sees how big the crowd is, it feels like a dream. For the past six years, he’s worked hard to be a stage like this and finally he is. Of course, it is a pity that his favorite four people aren’t with him, but as time passes, he grows to love his current members more and more. Jonghyun has watched how hard they’ve worked not only as Wanna One, but on Produce 101. Despite two of them being older and one being the same age, he feels like they’re all his children that he’s watched grown up. It’s heartwarming, especially when he sees a beautifully genuine smile on Seonho’s face at the end of it.

“How do you feel?” Jonghyun asks Seonho as they walk back to the van.

“Like every hardship we’ve gone through wasn’t for nothing,” Seonho grins, wrapping his arms around the older.

“Do you think that’s how Guanlin felt?”

Seonho stops walking for a moment, almost causing Jonghyun to trip. He thinks for a moment before speaking, “Maybe so.”

  
  
  


A few days later, Jonghyun gets called to speak with the CEO during the middle of practice. The members laugh at how Jonghyun got in trouble, but the leader figures it’s nothing as Jonghyun has been called to the CEO’s office plenty of times as NU’EST’s leader and they weren’t because he was in trouble.

He knocks on the door before entering. The CEO’s face is unreadable as he tells Jonghyun to take a seat in front of him. It worries Jonghyun a little bit, but he tries to stay calm.

“You know, maybe taking away your guys’s cell phones was a bad idea,” the boss sighs.  _ “Is he going to give us back their phones?”  _ Jonghyun thinks to himself, but doesn’t say a word, waiting for the other to continue on. “You guys would be able to see all the comments that are written about you.”

“Isn’t it bad to read the comments as they only bring people down?” Jonghyun hesitantly asks as Pledis’s CEO has always told him that.

“Yes, but they also give you a good idea of what you’re doing  _ wrong  _ ,” the older emphasizes the last word harshly that it sends shivers down Jonghyun’s spine, “For example, there is a lot of upset because of you and how you’ve brought up NU’EST in almost every single show and interview you’ve done so far. This needs to stop.”

Jonghyun can feel his heart drop to the floor. “Why? It’s not like I bring it up out of nowhere. The hosts usually ask me first. I just answer their questions.”

“It doesn’t matter. The fans think you’re not grateful for Wanna One. They think you don’t care about them or Wanna One," the boss pauses, raising a brow, "So who do you think they’re attacking?”

“NU’EST,” Jonghyun looks to the floor, his breath shaky as he forgot that this is how the story is supposed to go.

“You’re right,” CEO Yoo chuckles dryly, “Minhyun’s birthday was the other day, right? How do you think that panned out?”

Jonghyun thinks back to Minhyun’s birthday. In his reality, where they posted Instagram pictures of him and got backlash because of it. However, it wouldn’t make sense if they got backlash because Minhyun isn’t in Wanna One here. “I-I don’t know.”

“Here, why don’t you look yourself?”

The older hands him his phone, Instagram already loaded up. Jonghyun searches up each of his members’ accounts. They all posted pictures of old birthday celebrations as five. Minhyun is the only one who posted a picture of them as four, but he made sure to tag Jonghyun’s account. In the comments, it’s heartbreaking. A lot of people are cursing at them for posting a picture with Jonghyun, saying it’s unnecessary and they’re only doing it to try to say relevant. People are calling them trash and saying Jonghyun should just focus on Wanna One and not them. It completely shatters Jonghyun’s heart, especially knowing that Minhyun is getting these comments on a day that’s supposed to be precious for him.

And it's all his fault.

“Do you see what happens you keep talking about them?” Jonghyun hands back the CEO his phone silently, “It’s better for all of you if you just keep quiet. They won’t get hurt like this anymore.”

“It’s not fair,” Jonghyun mutters, “What about the fans who have been there for me from the start? Wouldn’t they find it unfair that I’m not saying a word about NU’EST?”

The other laughs, “Isn’t the reason why you guys joined Produce 101 was because you guys didn’t have make profit. The amount of fans who have been with you previously are a speck of dust compared to Wanna One fans. Because you have to think about it like this, the fans of the other members are also upset that you’re talking about another group. It’s better to settle the crowd than the few.”

“But NU’EST is my family. They’ll be frustrated that I'm just pretending they don't exist,” Jonghyun continues looking at the floor, his emotions getting the best of him as a single tear drops from his eye, “What if I continue talking about them? What happens?”

“Oh, I simply won’t let you. This was never a debate of whether you can or can’t, Jonghyun. I was just informing you,” the CEO leans forward on his desk with a devious smile that Jonghyun wishes he could punch, “I’ll ask the producers to cut out anything you say about them, but if you keep on trying, I’ll cut you out from going onto shows altogether. You might think that’s not too bad, but you not appearing on shows hurts your chance of NU’EST becoming successful like you want, right?”

The leader nods quietly. It was easy to talk back to Jisung and try to voice his opinions, but he can’t do that with his boss. “I understand this isn’t what you want, but if you want things to go smoothly for the next year and a half, you need to listen to what I say. Understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good. You may leave now.”

Jonghyun quickly gets up and leaves the office. He runs off to the closest bathroom, splashing his face with water to stop his tears. After half a minute, he looks up in the mirror and without thinking he punches it. The glass smashes and his blood drips down, but he’s unphased.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore. I’m tired of this. I just want everything to be okay,” Jonghyun cries out, not minding whether there’s anyone else in the bathroom or not. However, he can’t even remember the last time things were okay. Before Produce 101, he was depressed because they weren’t making profit. During Produce 101, he was stressed trying to win the public’s favor. In his reality, he was upset and felt abandoned by Minhyun. And now, he doesn’t know what’s going on with this alternate universe situation but he hates it all.

If not wishing to go back to his reality, he wishes he could turn a blind eye and just not speak during broadcasts, but he knows the members too well. He knows how Minki would laugh and smile like everything’s okay, but not be okay. He knows how Dongho would act like a man and shoulder everyone else’s concerns without taking care of himself. He knows how much Aron already would feel guilty since he didn’t go on the survival show, but feel worse knowing he isn’t getting acknowledged. He knows how much Minhyun would miss him just as Jonghyun misses Minhyun.

The four of them are people he cares about immensely that he can’t just intentionally hurt them like this. Jonghyun would rather hurt ten times more than them to feel an ounce of pain, but he can’t do that. He can’t help them through anything despite being leader.

Jonghyun feels absolutely pathetic.

He takes deep breaths as he watches the blood slowly drip from his hand, not bothering to clean it up just yet. The stinging from the impact is still there, but the frustration in his heart hurts more. It’s almost calming. It’s like the lesser of two evils, the physical pain being less than the emotional pain.

The door swings open, “Jonghyun hyung! What happened?” Seonho runs over, quickly grabbing paper towels to stop the wound from bleeding. The younger looks at the other’s blank expression and furrows his brows, “What’s wrong?”

“Same old, same old,” Jonghyun dryly chuckles, finally rinsing off his hand as Seonho basically forces him to, “Just another unfortunate situation in my life that the universe gives me, knowing I can’t do anything about it. No matter how I see it, it's a lose-lose situation for me. It makes me so mad. I can either choose to ignore and hurt them or notice them and watch them get hurt by the public.” Tears fall down from Jonghyun's face and he wipes them immediately, “I’m also tired of crying. I feel so weak.”

“It’s okay to cry. It’s understandable,” Seonho wraps the wound in paper towels for now, making a mental note to get bandages as soon as possible. He gives Jonghyun a warm hug, “I don’t know the specifics of what happened, but I know this is hard and you don’t want to hurt anyone. It hurts that you can’t protect anyone, not even yourself. I know that and I understand, but you’ll be okay. We’ll be okay! One day, we’ll see our boyfriends, we’ll smile and be happy. So let’s hang in there until then.”

“You’re right,” Jonghyun sighs, “Of course you’re right. My judgement has been so cloudy with my mixed emotions. I’m thankful I have you by my side throughout all of this. Thank you.”

They stay there until Jonghyun’s bleeding subdues and his emotions have calmed down. When they get to the practice room, the others ask what happened, but Jonghyun ignores their questions and tells them to get to work. He doesn't want them to worry about him. When they start practicing again, the leader focuses all his might on doing well to distract himself from his thoughts and it works.

It’s then that he decides that he’ll submerge himself into his work so he doesn’t even have time to feel sorry for himself.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me last chapter: i'll update regularly
> 
> haha... took me 2 months to update... but i hope it was ok!


	5. i'm bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> minhyun's pov ... finally

Minhyun loves Jonghyun and that is a timeless fact. No matter what happens, Minhyun will always love Jonghyun. 

Jonghyun was the main reason to Minhyun’s survival on Produce 101, despite it being seen the opposite way with Minhyun’s nickname as an emperor. Yes, Minhyun chose Jonghyun to be in his team and that gave him exposure like never before, but Jonghyun was there for him emotionally through every mental breakdown in the course of those three months. Jonghyun has  _ always  _ been there for Minhyun. 

 

The first time was during the group evaluations when he got a higher score than everyone else. Minhyun felt like he didn’t deserve it, but with a kiss on the cheek and an endearing gaze, Jonghyun reassured him that he deserved the world.

 

The second time was after reevaluations when Minhyun moved down to D. Minhyun felt like a disappointment and under-qualified to be an idol despite his years of being one. Jonghyun held Minhyun in his arms and told him that the letters don’t define him and he is precious in his eyes. 

It was that simple.

 

The third time was due to stress during Downpour. With Jonghyun mainly focused on helping Guanlin and the rest of his team, Minki and Dongho struggling with getting Playing with Fire team in coordination, Minhyun felt alone. He wasn’t too close with any of his new friends in the show to open up to them and he didn’t want to bother his members so when he felt like his vocal condition was at its worst, he locked himself in a practice room. However, when practice was over, Jonghyun asked Jaehwan where Minhyun was and Jaehwan had no idea. 

“Maybe in a practice room? I know he wasn’t having a good practice day today,” Jaehwan shrugs, but those words send Jonghyun flying across the building. Minhyun never disappears without a word. He always lets someone know where he is because he knows how much Jonghyun worries. 

He tries opening every door, accidentally catching secret couples making out as well, but he doesn’t mind. The last door doesn’t budge and he knows that Minhyun is behind it. He knocks on the door repetitively until Minhyun opens it. 

“Jonghyun, I can explain…” Minhyun backs away further into the room as Jonghyun’s stern face worries him, “Please don’t be mad a--”

Minhyun’s words stop as Jonghyun swiftly grabs his boyfriend into a big hug, “You’ve been struggling. Haven’t you? I’m sorry I haven’t been talking to you a lot. It’s been a tiring past couple of days.”

“It’s okay,” Minhyun’s arms naturally wrap around Jonghyun, his fingers playing with the cloth of his shirt, “I understand. You have a lot of responsibility on you right now. I just don’t want you to stress out more than you have to.”

“I’ll probably be leader for as long as I’m in this show, but just know that you, my boyfriend, are always my #1 priority,” Jonghyun pulls away and looks into Minhyun’s eyes, “I love you.”

Minhyun gives a chaste kiss on Jonghyun’s lips, “I love you too. I’m sorry for worrying you. We can go now. I think I’ve had enough practice for the day.” 

“Are you sure? I can stay here with you and listen to you practice. Just to keep you company?” Jonghyun smiles, “I didn’t come here to stop you. I was just worried because you never do anything like this unless you’re stressed.”

“You know me too well,” Minhyun chuckles, “Just thirty more minutes then.” 

Jonghyun closes the door and sits down on the floor as Minhyun sings his lines. He tries to reassure Minhyun that his mistakes are all in his head and he sounds beautiful. He’s not lying, of course, but he may just be a bit biased as his boyfriend’s voice always will sound beautiful to him. 

 

The fourth and last time was after the finale. The sight of Minhyun crying like a baby obviously hurt Jonghyun, but he tried his best to let his boyfriend know that everything will be okay and not to worry about the other members. Jonghyun greets other people, but he checks up on Minhyun when everyone is mingling in the end. He tries his best not to make it obvious that he’s especially attentive to Minhyun since it is in front of the public.

  
  


Minhyun knows Jonghyun always throws away his own emotions to care for him. 

When the first episode of Produce 101 came out, Minhyun almost felt betrayed as he saw Jonghyun cry on camera as Jonghyun never said a word to him.

Jonghyun also never told Minhyun how frustrated he was seeing Minhyun in D class, wanting him to go up rather than down. 

Minhyun heard straight from Guanlin that Jonghyun struggled a lot during the rap portion as he hardly had time to work on his own rap as he was too focused on his team. 

It was also common Produce 101 gossip that Jonghyun cried at the finale, away from the cameras and away from Minhyun.

Minhyun knows that it’s only sensible that Jonghyun would hide his emotions from Minhyun as bringing his own emotions into the mix would make things more messy. He knows Jonghyun sees him as his priority, but he hates being at a higher priority than Jonghyun’s own mental health. 

He noticed it particularly when Minhyun called over Jonghyun and Minki for Wanna One Go. Jaehwan and Minhyun were paired together, which was not surprising with the time they spent together. However, it was common knowledge that Jaehwan had a  _ small _ crush on Minhyun, but he told people he would never try to break their relationship. However, he can’t control his feelings and just suddenly turn off his feelings for Jonghyun. 

As soon as he caught Jonghyun staring at Minhyun and Jaehwan cuffs, Minhyun knew it was a mistake to invite them. The staff encouraged Minhyun to invite them as they knew it would bring in more views, so originally Minhyun thought nothing really of it. If anything, he was excited to see them after so long. Without phones, they haven’t be able to talk at all and it was eating him up inside. 

To everyone else, Jonghyun is really good at hiding his emotions. No one can tell when he’s upset even during the worst of times, but Minhyun can always tell. He can easily notice the way Jonghyun avoids eye contact with him unless necessary, the way Jonghyun’s being a bit quieter than normal whenever Minhyun is around, and the way Jonghyun is finding distractions in other people. 

He’s obviously jealous and it’s a bit cute in Minhyun’s opinion. 

But as time passed, Minhyun could see Jonghyun get more and more frustrated that it was concerning. When it was time for all of them to leave, Jonghyun left without saying a word to Minhyun. At first, Minhyun was going to leave it alone, but the guilt was bottling inside him that he couldn’t stop himself from reacting.

“Alright, so next you two wi--”

“Can you just give me a moment? I’m sorry,” Minhyun cuts off the producer, quickly running out the door and closing the door on Jaehwan, not wanting him to be a part of his mess.

Luckily for Minhyun, Jonghyun is still in reach, his wrist still in reach to grab, “Jonghyun, can we just talk? Please.”

Jonghyun gives a look to Minki to leave before he looks at his boyfriend, “Sure, what?”

“I just,” Minhyun bites his lip, “I haven’t seen you or talked to you in so long and it just didn’t feel like you were even caring for me.” 

The leader sighs, “I don’t know, babe. It would’ve been nice if you had warned me about  _ that _ ,” Jonghyun points at Minhyun’s string.

“Would you have not come if you knew?” Minhyun furrowed his eyebrows, “It’s not like there’s anything going on with me and him.”

“I know!” Jonghyun yells just a bit too loud, softening his voice right after, “I know. It just hurts when you haven’t seen your boyfriend in so long and you see him literally cuffed with someone else that you know likes him.”

Minhyun doesn’t say a word, but pulls his boyfriend into a hug instead.

“I worry about you a lot. We all do,” Jonghyun wraps his arms around Minhyun, his chin resting on the other’s shoulder softly, “I miss you so much.”

Minhyun kisses Jonghyun on his forehead, “I miss you too, love.” 

 

As if protecting Jonghyun from getting hurt wasn’t already on his mind, it didn’t help too that the CEO told Minhyun what happened on his birthday. Originally, he asked, since it was his birthday, if he could at least spend a few hours of his time with his friends. Despite how hectic their schedules were back at Pledis, their CEO was at least nice enough to care to their birthday requests if they were reasonable. Minhyun felt like his request was reasonable and YMC’s CEO had to have some heart to care, right? 

“Minhyun, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to say no,” he says firmly with small frown on his face. 

“Why? We won’t cause any trouble. I promise. We’ve been in this industry for years, we know h--”

“It’s not that simple,” the CEO cuts off, sighing before speaking again, “There were some problems earlier today.” 

“Problems?” Minhyun’s eyebrows furrow. 

“The NU’EST members posted on Instagram for your birthday, which sounds very innocent and sweet, right?” Minhyun nods in response hesitantly, “Well, fans attacked them in the comments saying they shouldn’t be posting about you. Apparently, there are people who like you, but hate the other members of your other group. I’d hate to see you or your friends get hurt. No matter how careful you guys are, I don’t want to risk it. Do you understand?” 

Minhyun can’t help but frown. He doesn’t understand the wrong in posting for his birthday, but he knows arguing with the boss won’t change anything, “I understand… this really sucks.” 

“Yeah, it really does. I won’t show you what was said because I don’t want you to worry about it,” The CEO pauses for a bit, “And I know Happy Together wasn’t your fault as they asked you first about NU’EST related topics but because of this, I’m going to ask you to refrain from talking about them too.” 

“Oh… okay. I understand,” Minhyun can feel himself growing more and more frustrated, “It just doesn’t feel right to the members or the fans, but I understand where you’re coming from.” 

“I know, but this is in order to protect them from harm.” 

Minhyun stands up from his chair and puts on a fake smile, “Well, if there’s nothing else to talk about. I would like to go.” 

The CEO nods, “Try to spend the rest of your birthday happily. I’m sure Wanna One would also like to enjoy today with you.” 

“You’re right. Thanks.” 

Minhyun walks out of the room and sighs as he thinks about what was just told to him. He doesn’t want to see them get hurt and he doesn’t want them to be attacked when they’re also trying to succeed during this time. It’s not fair and he wishes he could do something about it.

But maybe he can. 

It’s then that Minhyun decides to cut them off. It’s for their own good. It is so Jonghyun (and consequently the others) could stop worrying about him and focus on their own struggles without him. It is so they can receive as less hate as possible. Jonghyun has always thrown away his emotions for the sake of Minhyun and it’s Minhyun’s turn to do the same. On the plus side, Minhyun knows he won’t be able to see them often, so it’s better just to numb his emotions and cut himself off from the others as well. Minhyun assures himself it would be better for his own mental health as he doesn’t want to keep worrying about when was the next time he could see his members and he doesn’t want their pain to be in his conscience. 

When he gets his phone later that month, he replies slower and slower to the members in the group chat to the point where he just wouldn’t reply and they stopped trying to include him in the conversation. He barely answers their calls and if he does, he keeps them short. Minki, Aron, and Dongho eventually give up, but Jonghyun never does.

 

“Jonghyun, Dongho, and Minki came by earlier. Where were you?” Seongwoo asks as Minhyun walks inside their waiting room, “I thought you would be happy to finally get to see them after god knows when.” 

“I was just out,” Minhyun replies nonchalantly as he sits down on the couch. 

“I think they went back into their room. We still have some time before we go on, you coul--” 

“No, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it,” Minhyun lies down and covers his eyes with a napkin, “I’d rather try to nap for a bit instead.” 

“Oh, uh, okay then,” Seongwoo shrugs as he walks away, “Good night then. I’ll be with Daniel if you need anything.” 

Seongwoo walks away to Daniel, keeping an eye on Minhyun who doesn’t budge at all. He asks Daniel if he knows anything, but Daniel, being the clueless person he is, doesn’t know a thing. 

 

They only had a few performances with NU’EST W, but with all of them, every time Jonghyun, Dongho, and Minki visit, Minhyun is nowhere to be found. Usually, he hides at a Produce 101 related room like Samuel or Hotshot, but once he finds himself in BtoB’s waiting room because he just has no other options. 

Every time one of the Wanna One members questions him, he always has some excuse. “I needed fresh air,” “I wanted to catch up with someone,” or Seongwoo’s personal favorite “Oh, I took a fat shit,” are all excuses in which the members can easily tell Minhyun is lying. But are they gonna call him out on it?  They’re getting there.

Minhyun isn’t someone people have problems with, usually. During Produce 101, he was one of the most unproblematic trainees, but if anything did happen, Jonghyun simply took care of it. Throughout their time as Wanna One so far, Minhyun hasn’t done anything wrong, so none of them knew how to properly confront the other. A lot of them are intimidated by him, in fact. Despite him being friendly and a fun person to be around, they’re always scared to correct him in any matter because despite him debuting with all of them, they can’t just forget that he has six years of prior experience and is a big senior to them. 

Seongwoo tries to hint his curiosity to the whole situation. Whenever Minhyun comes back to the waiting room, he questions why Minhyun went out (especially when he went BtoB’s room, that was not expected). Every now and then, he asks how Jonghyun is doing and Minhyun always replies with either “fine” or “why don’t you ask him yourself?” The sass from the latter remark always surprises him. 

But when Seongwoo is hanging out in the big room with all of its members and he notices as Minhyun ignores Jonghyun’s calls, he feels like he’s had enough of this tiptoeing around. 

“Why are you ignoring Jonghyun’s calls?” he asks in the most nonchalant way he can.

Minhyun shrugs, “I’m hanging out with you guys right now. He can wait.” 

“Ahh, really,” Seongwoo nods, “I mean, now that I think of it, I’ve never seen you talk to Jonghyun in the past couple months. It’s a bit strange.” 

The room goes silent and everyone inside can sense the tension. They’re not stupid. They know exactly what Seongwoo’s trying to do. Jaehwan particularly looks at Seongwoo with widen eyes, trying to signal to him to chill out. 

“Why do you care? Mind your own business, Seongwoo,” Minhyun glares at the other, “I don’t think you have any right to talk to me about this.”

“Jihoon, Guanlin, Woojin, please leave the room for a bit,” Seongwoo looks at Jaehwan, “Hmm, you can stay I suppose.” 

The called out members, having a vague sense of what’s going to happen, quickly leave the room and Seongwoo stands up and looks at Minhyun intently, “Look here. I don’t know if you think we’re all fucking stupid or something, but we can see that there’s obviously something going on.”

“Y-y-yeah, hyung,” Jaehwan hesitates to continue, standing up as well, “It’s not just a coincidence that  _ every _ time NU’EST W come into our waiting room, you’re just gone.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know your bowels were in sync with their appearance,” Seongwoo chuckles, “We’re your friends, Minhyun. We’re also their friends too. You can talk to us.” 

Minhyun rolls his eyes as he stands up, “I still don’t see why you guys care. If anything, this is a NU’EST problem, not a Wanna One problem. This is nothing impacting our team at all. Just leave me alone.” 

“I mean, okay. If we never met Minki, Dongho, Jonghyun, or Aron -- which we all got pretty acquainted with when you weren’t around, he’s a pretty cool guy -- then I maybe wouldn’t be getting into this whole thing right now. But not only do I know you and them, but I know your relationship with Jonghyun. I saw with my own two eyes your guys’s relationship and when Daniel and I first started dating, I told myself that I want to be like them. Fuck, Minhyun,” Seongwoo exhales hot air as he gets upset, “I think to myself if I was in your situation I would take every opportunity to see and love my boyfriend, but you don’t even want to look at the guy. Like what the hell? Did you guys break up? Do you not love him anymore?”

The look in Minhyun’s eyes is something neither Seongwoo nor Jaehwan has ever seen before. They can almost see the flames burning in his eyes as Minhyun steps closer to his same aged friend. Minhyun has never seemed like the type to be physically violent but he pushes Seongwoo harshly that he almost falls to the floor, “You have no fucking right to talk to me like this. You’ve barely known me for what, less than a year? How dare you! How dare you try to criticize me and my actions when you don’t know me at all! You don’t know anything about what I’m going through personally or what my relationship is going through to talk to me like this, to say that I don’t love Jonghyun and to assume we’ve broken up. Fuck you, Seongwoo.”

Seongwoo runs up to Minhyun and holds him by the collar. Jaehwan tries to intervene and stop them from fighting, but Jaehwan gets pushed away, “Sure, okay. Maybe I have only known you for less than a year, but fuck we’ve experienced so much together. We’ve told each other secrets and have created memories that I thought we were friends. I wouldn’t be a fucking friend if I watched you destroy your six year friendships and relationship away.”

“Guys! Stop fighting! Fuck, Seongwoo hyung, why did you even let me stay in here?” Jaehwan yells, but the two don’t even blink towards Jaehwan.

“Oh? So, it’s just your god given duty to help others in need? Wow, Ong Seongwoo is so damn kind that he’ll just push himself into other people’s business so that he can be the hero. I’m so touched,” Minhyun sarcastically scoffs, “Again, I never asked for a ‘friend’ to help me. You can watch me destroy everything if that’s what you’re assuming what I’m doing.”

“Assuming? So, how the fuck is ignoring and avoiding them  _ not _ going to destroy your friendships and relationships? You’re saying I don’t know anything then TELL me. Please inform me because last time I checked isn’t communication key? You know what communication is, right? Talking to people and telling people what’s on your mind and not ignoring their calls or acting like everything’s alright,” Seongwoo almost spits on Minhyun’s face, “I’m not trying to be a hero. I’m trying to be a friend. I simply asked you questions. I didn’t want to make things this way, but  _ you _ made it this way.  _ You  _ got defensive because  _ you _ obviously have something to hide.” 

Jaehwan runs out of the room to call the others as he’s given up to try to stop them himself.

“After all of this, why would I want to tell you anything?” Minhyun scoffs, “You want to know all this information about me and my situation, but why don’t you look at yourself? You know just because you can’t fix your relationship with Daniel right now, doesn’t allow you to try to play Bob the Builder with mine.”

“Guys, no fighting!” Jisung yells as he runs into the room with Jaehwan.

“That’s fucking it,” Seongwoo hisses as he kicks Minhyun in the stomach so hits straight down to the floor, “I confided in you with that shit. You know better than to take that against me.” 

Jisung screams as he holds Seongwoo back and Jaehwan runs to make sure Minhyun doesn’t try to hit him back either, “You two need to stop right now. This is insane.” The leader begins to drag Seongwoo away and into their room.

“You need to fix yourself, Hwang Minhyun,” Seongwoo spits out as he’s being pulled away, “You can’t continue living your life like this.” 

The door closes and Jaehwan lets go of Minhyun, “I’m pretty sure you want to be left alone right now, hyung, so I’ll leave, but if you want to talk, I’m always here for you.” 

Jaehwan walks away and closes the door. Once the echoes of the slammed door come to a close, Minhyun sighs as he simply goes under his blanket. The tears fall down from his face and he feels stupid. He knows he shouldn’t have said that to Seongwoo. He knows Daniel and him are going through a rough time right now and he shouldn’t have used that against him, but he just felt so attacked by Seongwoo’s words that his reaction was to fight back. 

It would be easy if he just told Seongwoo or just any of the other Wanna One members, but he has felt like this is something he needs to be responsible for. With trying to protect NU’EST, he found himself lumping Wanna One into the mix. Somewhere along the lines, he felt like if he were to keep mentioning NU’EST to Wanna One, they’re going to feel like he cares more for NU’EST than them and he doesn’t want that. He loves all ten of them dearly that he can’t afford to potentially hurt them too. “There’s nothing good that comes from them knowing,” he thought to himself so many times. This is his situation and he’s just protecting everyone from being hurt or worried or concerned, or just anything that’s not happy. 

But as he realizes that he failed thinking about what just happened with Seongwoo, he cries harder into his pillow.

He really does miss Jonghyun. He misses all of them so much. Despite loving the Wanna One members, he can’t help but miss his other four members as well and it hurts. They were all what kept Minhyun grounded. He wishes he could just throw away his internal responsibility and talk to them, but he knows he can’t. Minhyun knows that this is what’s best for them and he knows that  _ if Jonghyun was in his place, he would do the same.  _

 

Minhyun cries until he falls asleep and when he wakes up he hears a familiar voice.

“Minhyun, get your ass up. We got things to do.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant believe my ass took months to post this i go emo with every chapter of this fic i hate myself jsdkfhskdhf the onghwang fight was totally spontaneous like i just had a brief thought of it happening and i just ended up writing it... ALSO I REALIZED MY ASS FORGOT ABOUT WANNA ONE GO IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS SO WE'RE JUST GONNA FORGET THAT BC IT JUST MAKES THINGS MORE COMPLICATED JSDHFSJKD lets just make wanna one go not have invited ppl in their alt universes yeet LOL
> 
> also if u guys weren't sure when w1 got their phones back, it was around kconla 2017...


	6. look

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> minhyun is trying to understand what the hell is going on

Minhyun groans as he wakes up, but once he opens his eyes, he’s immediately confused. 

_ When did I come back home? _

Home. Home is what this place is even if he hasn’t step foot here in months. He has spent every waking moment lately with Wanna One and slept at their dorm every day, but that will never be home to him like how this place is. 

The Wanna One dorm is nice, don’t get him wrong and he does love the members, but what distinguishes here from there is the familiarity. His mattress that fits his body just right, not too soft and not too firm. His desk towards the corner of the room has notebooks of his lyric drafts just stacked on top of it. The off-white walls that used to be pure white when they moved in long ago, they’re covered in posters and the fan letters that left an impact on his heart before Produce 101. This is his home.

Minhyun rolls off of his bed and into the living room. Minki is leaning against the kitchen counter, eating an apple. 

“Dongho and Aron already left. Did you not see manager hyung’s text last night?” Minki sighs as Minhyun shakes his head, “Just hurry up and get ready.” 

Minhyun hurries to the bathroom, still not entirely sure what’s going on. He was going to ask Minki right then and there but considering how his mood doesn’t seem to be great, Minhyun knows he’s just going to get sassed and that’s not something he needs in the morning. 

Once he’s done washing his face and brushing his teeth,he heads back into his room and finds some clothes to wear. Minki was wearing track pants and a t-shirt, so Minhyun figures he should wear something similar. 

“Oh right, my phone,” he mumbles to himself as he retracts the step outside of his room. Minhyun goes back to his bed and grabs his phone under his pillow, fully charged. Remembering Minki bringing up a text, he unlocks it and goes straight to his messages. The one unread group chat reads as: 

 

**1:15am**

_ Manager hyung added Dongho, Minki, Aron, and you. _

Manager hyung: I’ll be picking you all up tomorrow around 10am. Be ready. You guys will be adjusting formations and lines to four members.

 

**9:50am**

Manager hyung: Are you guys ready?

Minki: Dongho, Aron and I are ready, but I think Minhyun is still asleep.

Minki: Sorry, hyung. I forgot to wake him up. 

Manager hyung: Okay, I’ll take Dongho and Aron now and come back in 30 to pick up you and Minhyun.

 

Minhyun’s eyebrows furrow as he reads the text messages. He doesn’t understand why they would need to change formations. He’s just here at the dorm to take a break from Wanna One, right? That’s the only reason why he is here. He double checks to make sure this was his phone and not Jonghyun’s, since they did have each other’s fingerprints saved onto their phones. 

It is his phone.

He clicks the lock button twice to check the homescreen which reads:

**June 19, 2017**

Last time Minhyun checked, it was almost November and Wanna One was preparing for their first comeback. He doesn’t comprehend why he would suddenly go back in time and have to change formations when he got into Wanna One.

“Hurry up, dude,” Minki groans as he swings Minhyun’s door open, “Hyung is waiting outside. You already wasted time by oversleeping.”

“Oh, sorry.” Minhyun shoves his phone in his pocket, grabs his water bottle and heads out with Minki. It’s obvious that Minki isn’t having it with him still so he’s silent as they sit in the car to the company. Minhyun isn’t complaining as this gives him time to search up what’s going on right now.

With a simple Naver search of “Produce 101 Season 2 Finale,” he finds out everything. Jonghyun is in Wanna One instead of him and surprisingly Seonho is in the group instead of Guanlin. Everything is still unclear. Why is this happening? Was Jonghyun also aware of this or is alone in this alternate (should he call it alternate? He’s not even sure about that) universe? 

Once they reach the company, Minki and Minhyun get out of the car and head straight to the practice rooms. Finding the one with Aron and Dongho, they notice that there’s no dance teacher here yet, so they sit down on the benches and sip on water.

“Where did you get that from?” Aron points at Dongho’s new metal water bottle. It supposedly keeps water cold for a really long time, but Minhyun doesn’t really know. 

Dongho grins, “Seongwoo gave it to me. He said it’s an early birthday gift since we probably won’t be able to spend it together.”

_ That’s right,  _ Minhyun thinks to himself,  _ Seongwoo. _

“Oh? Together?” Minki jokes as he nudges Dongho.

Dongho rolls his eyes, “You know it’s not like that. We’re on--”

Minhyun checks out of the conversation as he finally remembers what happened the previous night. The fight with Seongwoo that can be pinpointed as the roughest point of their friendship. Since being in Wanna One, no, since Produce 101, Seongwoo has always been someone Minhyun can rely on and Minhyun knows that Seongwoo only means the best for him that being reminded of the words said during that day pains his heart.

_ “I think to myself if I was in your situation I would take every opportunity to see and love my boyfriend, but you don’t even want to look at the guy. Like what the hell? Did you guys break up? Do you not love him anymore?” _

_ “You have no fucking right to talk to me like this. You’ve barely known me for what, less than a year? How dare you! How dare you try to criticize me and my actions when you don’t know me at all! You don’t know anything about what I’m going through personally or what my relationship is going through to talk to me like this, to say that I don’t love Jonghyun and to assume we’ve broken up. Fuck you, Seongwoo.” _

_ “You know just because you can’t fix your relationship with Daniel right now, doesn’t allow you to try to play Bob the Builder with mine.” _

Minhyun presses lightly on his stomach where Seongwoo had kicked him. There’s no physical pain, but his gut feels tight and he’s frustrated with how that turned out. He wishes that didn’t speak so emotionally and spoke understandingly of Seongwoo’s point of view. 

“Minhyun, are you okay?”

He looks up and sees Aron looking at him concerningly. The other two have already gotten up from the bench and started stretching. Minhyun puts on a soft smile and shakes his head. “I’m fine, don’t worry about it. I’ve just been tired.” 

Minhyun gets up and starts stretching along with them. He still doesn’t understand what the hell is going on, but he figures that he better do his best with what he’s given at this moment. 

  
  
  
  


After a few hours of practice, they finally have a break to go and get food for a late lunch. The lines distribution and dance formation changes are quite simple considering Jonghyun doesn’t have many lines and they all go to Aron since the rest of them can’t rap. (Minhyun tries to tell them he can do it too, but he gets shut down every time). 

They go to the same place they do almost every practice where they don’t want to order take out, but don’t wanna go far. It’s a small restaurant around the block from the company building. The owners are quite nice and they even cheered them on during Produce 101, telling all their other customers to vote for them. 

Sitting at a table at the far back, their usual table, they look at the menus. It’s funny because they always order the same thing despite looking at the menu every time. Once they order, the table gets quiet. Minhyun really isn’t sure what to say because he still hasn’t fully grasped his situation, so he waits for the others to talk. He knows that it’s usually him that speaks and sparks conversation first, but he’s too worried to say the wrong thing so he doesn’t.

And the others notice that.

“Are you okay, Minhyun?” Aron looks at him with a concerned expression, “You seem to be out of it all day today.”

Minhyun shakes his head, “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“Do you miss Jonghyun?” Dongho blurts, his eyes widen as he realizes he shouldn’t have asked that so upfront, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought him up. It hasn’t even been that long since we all last saw him.” 

Minhyun remembers that technically it hasn’t been a long time since they saw Jonghyun in this timeline. The finale was three days ago and Jonghyun probably moved out the day after. However, it’s been a lot longer for Minhyun that he doesn’t have the fingers to even try to count the days. The exact date of when he saw him is so blurry because he had been so set on ignoring NU’EST for the sake of trying to get them to not worry about him. He told himself that he knows Jonghyun well that Jonghyun would constantly worry and not focus on his own goals. 

He realizes that he doesn’t even know if that was a good solution to their situation. 

“Yeah, I miss him a lot,” Minhyun sighs as he stares at the table, “I miss him so much.”

Minki fake vomits as he hears the response, but Minhyun ignores it as he knows it seems to them that it’s only been two days, but for him, it’s been so much longer. For the rest of the lunch break, all Minhyun can think about is how much he misses Jonghyun and wants him in his arms. 

  
  
  


At the end of the day, Minhyun tucks himself into bed. Despite sometimes being frustrated sharing a room with five other people, he can’t help but admit that it feels a little bit lonely now without their loud energy. If he thinks about it, even before Produce 101, Jonghyun would often come into his room and cuddle with him anyway, so being alone like this in a room is strange to him. 

Despite so, he ends up falling asleep easily as the day was quite long and he’s exhausted. 

  
  
  
  


Minhyun finds himself dressed in crisp black slacks, a white button up and a grey blazer with two pins on it: a small gold crown and a blue name tag clipped onto it that clearly reads “Hwang Minhyun” that also has the logo that he dreads, Produce 101. He looks all around him, quite confused, as everyone is scrambling about and trying to get ready.

He’s standing next to Minki as he notices that Dongho is pulling Jonghyun by the hand towards somewhere. Minki grabs him by the arm and pulls Minhyun to follow behind the two. Minhyun realizes quickly that this is the finale from the familiar hecticness of backstage and the way him and his members are styled. Not seeing a reason not to, he follows along and smiles softly as they walk. 

Once they step onstage and get hit by the bright lights, the memories of this day flood in Minhyun’s head. He looks out into the crowd and spots Aron who is happily cheering from afar as well as Seungcheol too. He sees his fans as well cheering for him as his family members. It really is the Produce 101 Season 2 finale and Minhyun is going to live through it all over again. 

“10th place, C9 Bae Jinyoung!”

If dramatic pauses were already tedious when you don’t know the outcome, Minhyun can attest to saying that dramatic pauses when you know the outcome are even worse because it feels like there’s no point in waiting. He tries to relax his body as Minhyun knows who is going to be next, but he still feels jittery waiting for the next person to be called. Before BoA can even say his name, he can already hear his name being called. 

Minhyun stares at the ground and closes his eyes. He remembers the first time this happened. It was never a surprise to him when his name was called because he thought that Jonghyun would be a higher rank than him. Once Sorry Sorry Team 2 happened, Jonghyun was always ranked higher than him, so it would be reasonable that the finale would be the same. 

But as he already knows, that’s not how the story goes. 

“9th place, Pledis…” Minhyun holds his breath as BoA dramatically pauses, anticipating his name to be called. 

 

“Kim Jonghyun!”

 

The story is different this time around.

 

Minhyun looks over to his boyfriend and he sees a swarm of people running to congratulate him and he walks over as well, trying to hug him or even say something, but there’s just too many bodies in the way.  In the midst of all the people, he manages to make eye contact with his boyfriend and looks into his eyes. He can feel the sadness in Jonghyun’s eyes and it hurts that he looks away, signaling to Jonghyun that he was time for him to go to the main stage and give his acceptance speech. Minhyun glances briefly at Dongho and Minki and their expressions are unreadable. 

Jonghyun sits on the chair with the golden 9 and it feels strange seeing him there. He vividly remembers how he felt seeing all three of them standing in front of him, but now it is just Jonghyun sitting away from him, making him feel far from his grasp.

The rest of the finale moves on almost as he remembers it. Jisung, Woojin, Seongwoo, Jaehwan, Daehwi, Jihoon, and Daniel are all called up. Seonho being announced as the final lineup is something that is different than what he remembers, but he doesn’t think too much about it. Minhyun looks at Jonghyun and he can see him looking at him that all he wants to do is look away. He can feel the guilt in Jonghyun’s eyes, wanting Minhyun to be up there with him. 

This isn’t how it was supposed to be. 

“14th place, Pledis Hwang Minhyun”

He bows politely and thanks the crowd. People come over to him and give him light hugs to comfort him in this situation. Minhyun feels a pain in his heart as he thinks about not being a part of Wanna One. His mind floods to all the work and effort he exerted to be on this stage right now and he can’t help but feel frustrated. Without even looking, he can feel Jonghyun looking at him with his sorrowful eyes and he doesn’t dare look back, keeping his gaze in front of him as the finale goes on. 

“13th place, Pledis Kang Dongho”

Minhyun can barely register Dongho’s name being said as all he’s thinking about is Jonghyun. He knows Jonghyun more than anyone, maybe more than Jonghyun knows himself sometimes. His precious leader of many years is someone who will feel guilty for abandoning his members in a different group. No matter how many times they’ll tell him that it’s okay and this is what we signed up for, he will always feel responsible for abandoning them. That’s how much Jonghyun loved NU’EST.

The show ends and the eliminated members walk to the main stage to congratulate the new members of Wanna One as well as say hello to the contestants who were eliminated in previous episodes. Minhyun spots Jonghyun right away already in a mess of tears and he walks over. 

“Hey, no more crying,” Minhyun gives Jonghyun a warm smile and pulls him into a huge, “You look beautiful when you’re smiling. Don’t cry anymore, please.” He expects Jonghyun’s tears to lessen, but they only stream even harder and he can feel his sleeve become more and more soaked. Minhyun looks around and makes sure that cameramen don’t film closely, protecting his boyfriend’s image. 

As he slowly lets go of Jonghyun, he notices Hyunbin walk closer with a huge smile on his face, but it quickly disappears after seeing the tears in the leader’s eyes. Hyunbin runs over and brings Jonghyun into a big hug, pulling Minhyun into the hug a couple seconds later. If Minhyun is honest, he does feel a bit jealous of how much Hyunbin looks up to Jonghyun. He must have been happy that Jonghyun got into top 11. “Hyunbin, I swear, you better not cry too right now,” Minhyun jokes as he pats Hyunbin’s back.

The younger pats his face after letting go and smiles, “I’m not! It’s just… Jonghyun hyung,” Hyunbin looks at Jonghyun with a sad look in his eyes. Jonghyun looks away and scoffs, trying to hold his reliable image, but Minhyun can easily see right through it, “Don’t worry about me. Go greet the others, okay?” Hyunbin stands there for a brief moment in silence before doing as he’s told. Once gone, Minhyun looks as Jonghyun looks up to the ceiling, trying hard to calm down. Minhyun knows how much he wants to be happy in this situation. 

He knows because he also felt the same.

“You’re such a baby.  _ My  _ baby,” Minhyun chuckles as he starts to walk away, “I’m going to talk to the others and congratulate them.”

Minhyun wants to stay with Jonghyun the entire time, but he doesn’t want both of them to cry during this situation. He wants to stay smiling as much as possible, so Jonghyun doesn’t feel worse about all this. He walks around and hugs the other Wanna One members, but he keeps looking over at Jonghyun just to make sure he’s okay. (He isn’t and Minhyun knows that, but he doesn’t know what else to do to make things okay.) 

Everyone begins to walk backstage and he sees Guanlin and Jonghyun walking in front of him. It makes him feel a bit relieved that Guanlin is trying to make Jonghyun feel better and he wishes that Guanlin got into top 11 to keep Jonghyun company. 

Minhyun tries to lighten the atmosphere by laughing at him for crying again, as well as weakly congratulating him in front of the cameras.  Dongho and Minki are also there to comfort him. 

“Think of the bright side,” Dongho laughs as he pats Jonghyun’s back, “At least one of us made it, right?”

Minhyun agrees with Dongho, but Jonghyun just stays silent. All Minhyun wants to do is kiss Jonghyun, maybe that’ll make him feel better. He also doesn’t even know how many more kisses they’ll be able to share for the next 1 ½ years that as soon as Jonghyun finishes recording a message on camera for their fans, he silently pulls Jonghyun to the side where he knows no cameras are allowed. Minhyun puts his hand on the wall behind Jonghyun with a serious look in his eyes. 

“W-what are you doing?” Jonghyun stutters as he avoids eye contact with the other. Minhyun can’t help but think Jonghyun’s cute for being so surprised. 

“I wanna kiss you because I don’t know when I’ll be able to kiss you again.” Minhyun gently moves Jonghyun’s head to face him. He slowly leans forward, briefly stopping himself with a few centimeters in between their lips, taking in the moment. He softly smiles before pressing his lips against the other’s. Jonghyun kisses back eagerly and Minhyun’s arm wraps around the leader as he pulls himself closer to him. This is Minhyun’s bliss, being with his boyfriend and feeling his warm presence. Watching Jonghyun cry hurt Minhyun deeply, the thought of them being separated pained him, but kissing him and being with him makes him feel at peace. 

  
  
  


Minhyun wakes up in his room in the middle of the night without anyone near him. He thinks about walking to Aron’s room or someone for a bit of comfort as the dream really took a toll on his heart, but he knows that would be a little weird as they’re not his parents or anything. Underneath his pillow, he grabs his phone and checks the date.

**June 20, 2017**

He puts his phone down and rolls to his side so that he’s facing the wall. As much as he tries to go back to bed, his head is screaming about how much he misses Jonghyun and will do anything to let him know that. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha this took a lot longer than expected,,, if all goes as planned i will be updating this frequently as i want to finish this before the year ends :)


	7. let me out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> guanlin's struggles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not edited at all rip maybe will edit later on some small details just fyi

The days blend just like so for the next month or so. It’s just constant practicing and making sure that they won’t make mistakes of the 5 membered formations. They have a lot of rest days too, which is where Minhyun just stares into space and gives himself time to think about everything. During one of these days, Guanlin messages him to hang out and Minhyun feels relieved that he can have a small escape from this situation.

He has almost slipped the whole “I’m not sure if I’m in the right universe” a handful of times to the other members that it stresses him out. Sometimes he would catch himself humming or dancing the choreography of a Wanna One song not yet released and the members would ask what he was doing and he’d have to scramble to think of a believable lie. There have also been times where he would be talking to one or all of them and bring up a story that a certain member did and be questioned about when that ever happened. It makes Minhyun feel like he should just keep his mouth shut all the time, but that’s hard for someone like him. 

Minhyun arrives first at the restaurant and he feels himself getting a bit antsy as he waits for Guanlin. He originally was going to message Guanlin first to hang out because he missed the boy, but he’s had a lot on his mind that he forgot to, so he’s grateful that Guanlin ended up messaging first. 

“Minhyun hyung!” Guanlin yells as he walks over to the table, grabbing a seat in front of the older, “I’m sorry I’m late. I got a little lost.” 

Minhyun smiles looking at one of the members he grew quite fond over in Wanna One, “Don’t worry about it. How have you been?” 

Guanlin glances at the menu as he speaks, “I’m alright. Just a bit tired getting back into the trainee life. Korean lessons and what not. Dancing is tiring.” 

The older laughs at his response. He calls the waiter over and they order their meals. They chat about what they’ve been up to more specifically until the owner turns on the TV. It’s a korean music updates show and they announce Wanna One’s debut coming soon. They play clips from the finale show including teary Jonghyun. Minhyun and Guanlin are both silent as their eyes are glued to the TV that they don’t even notice when the waiter comes by with their food. The show switches topics to talk about a different group and they both turn to each other with awkward smiles. 

“I miss them a lot,” Guanlin sighs, grabbing his chopsticks from the table drawer.

Minhyun nods, “Me too. We all got pretty close.” It’s funny because Minhyun isn’t even thinking of their Produce 101 memories, but their memories as Wanna One. 

“It feels a bit lonely now if I’m honest. Seonho doesn’t have a phone anymore so I can’t talk to him and the other trainees treat me differently, like I’m a senior because of the TV exposure.” Guanlin swirls his chopsticks in his soup, with a blank stare before he looks back up at Minhyun, “That’s why I messaged you, hyung. I was a bit scared though because I didn’t wanna disturb you if you were busy.” 

The older shook his head, “You shouldn’t be scared. I care a lot about you and you would never disturb me. If I’m busy, I’ll find time and let you know.”

Guanlin smiles, shoving some food in his mouth. He chews for a bit but then he stops, staring at his food with a blank look. Minhyun furrows his brows in confusion, but before he tries to ask what’s wrong, the younger looks up at him with a hesitant smile. 

“I can tell you anything, right?”

Without hesitation, Minhyun responds, “Of course. Is there something wrong?” 

Guanlin avoids eye contact as he thinks, pursing his lips as there’s obviously something heavy on his mind. Minhyun waits patiently, not pressing him for an answer.

“I’m scared you’re going to think I’m crazy,” Guanlin bites his lip as he hears Minhyun take a breath to speak. 

“It’s obvious that this isn’t something minor and it’s been bothering you.” Minhyun holds Guanlin’s hand reassuringly, “I’m always open ears for you. I don’t care what it is.”  

The younger nods, staring at Minhyun’s side of the table and not making eye contact, “Thanks, hyung. I’m gonna tell you, but don’t say anything until I’m done speaking.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Their relationship may not be the longest, but Guanlin knows he loves Seonho. In a foreign country without any family, Seonho feels like home to him. Some people would get annoyed with how Guanlin stutters and constantly messes up his Korean, but Seonho, from rhe day they met until now, has always been patient with the foreigner, correcting him when necessary. Seonho cares so deeply about Guanlin and he can feel it.

He’s known since even before the Produce 101 finale how worried Seonho is about Guanlin being in Wanna One. Yes, the episode before that Guanlin was 20th and Seonho was a higher rank, but before that Guanlin was the “superstar” as Seonho likes to say. He ranked a good amount higher that they knew it was a high probability that Guanlin was going to get in and Seonho wasn’t.

Since the moment Guanlin walked into the company until the finale, Seonho has always been by his side, guiding and caring for him. Even when they were in separate teams throughout the show, Guanlin always had Seonho to rely on whenever things got rough. Of course, he was there for Seonho too because Seonho also stressed out. They were there for each other and this would be the first time that this wouldn’t be the case.  

This is when Guanlin realized he became too dependent on Seonho. It is especially hard when he didn’t have his phone. Preparing for their debut with ten other people that he knows in his heart that are better than him hurts his self confidence tremendously, so that plus feeling like he has no one there for him breaks him. 

Guanlin loves his hyungs, he swears. Jihoon is sweet, Daniel is fun, Minhyun is dependable, he can go on and on. However, the connection isn’t there like it is with Seonho that he becomes afraid to open up. 

This leads to his thoughts swarming and turning dark. 

He starts to feel like a burden to Seonho. 

It starts off small once he gets his phone back. He realizes that with his hectic schedule and Seonho’s small activities, he constantly breaks his promise to talk or Seonho will have to wait a long time for him to get home. Sharing the big room with four other members stresses Guanlin out too as he’s afraid he’s bothering them when he talks on the phone to Seonho inside. Someone’s always being noisy in the living room so he can’t even try to go there and going anywhere else is off limits. 

Seonho tells him time after time that it’s okay and that he doesn’t mind but Guanlin refuses to believe it. It frustrates him because he’s the older one and he should be the one taking lead and being in charge of this relationship. With this, plus all his thoughts of being a less talented member of Wanna One, he more and more feels lackluster.

It’s easy to hide this attitude of his because everyone knows Guanlin’s Produce 101 antics. Him trying his best to do best and coming up with innovative ideas is what garnered attention towards him. He really had a drive to become a better person, but the stress weakened that initial drive. During Wanna One practices, he does work hard and try his best, but the intentions go from wanting to be a better performer to not wanting to be a bigger burden on his members. 

It’s absolutely terrible and he knows it, but despite acknowledging his problem, he can’t find a way to break out of it. 

Right before they come back with Beautiful, Guanlin starts feeling like he is getting close to his members, in particular, Minhyun. 

It is no way intentional on his part. Minhyun just will not stop bothering him to talk or hang out that he has no choice. He can’t possibly say no to Minhyun.

He finds himself feeling a bit more comfortable and everything feels slightly better. Yes, comeback preparation is stressful as before, but he starts to open up to Minhyun about it a little. He asks Minhyun whenever he can’t get a part right for advice. Asking for help before felt like he was slowing everyone down and a burden, but going to Minhyun didn’t feel that way. 

When he confides in Minhyun about feeling lackluster in the team, Minhyun reassures him that he’s not. Guanlin, not wanting this to be a one way street, wants to tell Minhyun that he’s always here for Minhyun too if he ever just needs someone to listen to, but he’s scared of rejection.

The younger isn’t stupid. He knows something is going on with Minhyun. Everyone in the group can tell, but Guanlin thinks that Minhyun will tell him when he’s ready. 

When Guanlin hears the fight between Seongwoo and Minhyun, he feels like absolute garbage. It obviously seems that Minhyun has had strong emotions pent up inside him for a while as he has never heard him sound more aggressive in his life. Guanlin feels like maybe he should’ve expressed that he is always there for Minhyun. Maybe he should have asked Minhyun if he was okay. He should’ve done something instead of just having their friendship be a one way street. It feels frustrating and that word pops into his head again. 

Lackluster. 

It rings in his head and it doesn’t help that he’s sitting in the living room, listening to Jihoon and Woojin argue about the choreography that he hasn’t gotten down at all. He doesn’t want to listen to them talk, but he left his earphones in the room and Jaehwan told everyone to let Minhyun have some alone time for a bit. Going into Jisung’s room is not an option because he’s probably having a talk with Seongwoo and third wheeling Daehwi and Jinyoung would be hell. 

More and more people join the argument, all having different interpretations of the choreography and Guanlin just stays quiet. They try asking Guanlin, but Guanlin decides to get out of the conversation by saying he has to call Seonho. He figures Minhyun has had enough alone time, well, he hopes. After knocking on the door, there’s no response so he enters. The room is dark and he walks over to Minhyun’s bed and he can hear soft snores thankfully. Getting into bed, he texts Seonho. 

__

**To: Yoo are Mine [01:28am]**

hi, can I call you soon?

**To: Guanlin-ie! [01:30am]**

sure, i’m not doing anything anyway so just call when ur ready

 

Guanlin hesitates, not sure if he should be dumping all this on Seonho again. He looks at his contact, his finger hovering over the call button. Without him even realizing, the tears fall down his eyes. Everything just feels so stressful, but he still manages to call his boyfriend. Once he hears his voice, however, he can’t find the words to say and just cries.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Seonho asks softly.

“I don’t know why I’m feeling so pained right now, but I am,” Guanlin’s voice trembles heavily, “I just look at everyone around me and they’re so good. They all have been practicing for much longer than me and it’s hard when I see them get a dance or a rap down right that I struggle so much on. I feel like I don’t deserve to be in such a talented and well-loved group.” 

“Don’t say that. You’re amazing and you’ve done so well so far. You’re doing your best and that’s all that matters.”

Guanlin knows Seonho is trying to make him feel better, but he just feels pathetic. He just doesn’t feel like his words can be real. Seonho has to be buttering up. That’s the only explanation. 

“You’re just saying that because you’re my boyfriend,” the older boy sniffles as Seonho replies. “Guanlin, I truly believe every word I say. The fact that I’m dating you doesn’t waiver my opinions. I love you.”

There’s silence for a few moments before Guanlin speaks again a lot softer than earlier, “I love you too. I just get so worried that I’m dragging everyone down. I worry if I’m saying the right words because I’m not fluent in Korean yet. I worry if they secretly hate me because they wish someone else was in the group and not me! I worry so much and it destroys me. It’s just so hard and hurts my heart because I can’t help but think this way. It’s so toxic and I’m scared to tell hyungs because I don’t want to burden them with my emotions. I don’t want to hear them say ‘it’s okay’ and ‘you’re wrong, Guanlin’ because I feel like I’ll never believe them. It just sucks you’re not here beside me through it all.”

“You know I’m always a phone call away.”

Guanlin knows that. He knows that he can always talk to Seonho, but sometimes he doesn’t feel like that’s the same. Sometimes he needs someone to physically be there for him especially with him constantly being busy. He thought he had Minhyun at least, but that doesn’t feel like the case anymore. 

“It’s not the same, babe,” Guanlin’s voice quivers, “I can’t cry into your arms when life gets tough like how it was when we were training together. I can’t feel comforted just by being your arms. I can’t hear you whisper sweet nothings into my ear like you used to. You’re not here and it hurts because I miss you  _ sooo _ much.”

“Well, where are you now? We’re not that far apart. I can get a taxi and be by your side and we can–”

“Wait, no. Don’t.” Guanlin interrupts as the thought of Seonho coming over and potentially bothering his members comes to mind. 

“W-what?” He can hear how taken aback Seonho is but he doesn’t have a choice.

“Don’t come, please.”

“Guanlin, I want to be here for you and you obviously need someone there for you right now. It’s not too hard for me to come over.” 

He thinks about it for a moment. He should probably be honest and tell Seonho that him coming over is not the right time because of the Minhyun/Seongwoo situation but saying that when Minhyun is in the room (even if he’s asleep) doesn’t feel right.

“I don’t want to burden you like this. I shouldn’t have even called. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry. You’re not burdening me! I love you so much and I only want the best for you.”

Guanlin takes a deep breath, “I love you too, but I think it was a mistake to call. I think I just… need to be alone for a while.”

He hangs up before Seonho can even say anything. Immediately, he turns off his phone and sighs. That didn’t go as planned. He should’ve approached that situation better but he couldn’t make up his mind of what he wanted. Guanlin feels burdened of how loving Seonho is, he feels undeserving. But at the same time, Guanlin oh so desperately needs his boyfriend to be there for him because he knows he has no one else. 

If he’s honest, he wishes that he never made it into Wanna One. It would’ve been a lot better mentally for him and he knows that if Seonho was in the top 11 and not him, Seonho would’ve killed it and done 100 times better than him. His boyfriend is fluent in Korean, he’s confident and charming, and gets along easily with other people and it’s all the things Guanlin feels like he’s not. 

Eventually, Guanlin falls asleep and the next day he wakes up in the Cube dorm. No alarms to wake up early, no hyungs yelling at him, no stress of being a burden, but still  _ very _ alone. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont think if you guys noticed but the full chain is shown!! jonghyun calling minhyun -> minhyun rejects phone call and gets into fight with ong -> guanlin feeling like a shit friend because he wasnt there for minhyun (plus feeling shit in general) -> unravels a shit ton of emotion onto seonho
> 
>  
> 
> also i thought my bitch ass would finish this before 2019 but i didnt so im aiming to finish this by the end of january!!

**Author's Note:**

> please feel free to talk to me about 2hyun (or any other pd101 ship) on [twitter](https://twitter.com/foxhyuns)  
> or send me plots you would like a short whip/drabble of at my [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/btobooty)


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